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"{ 


SLEEPING 
for  HEALTH 


SLEEPING  for  HEALTH 

£y 
EDWIN  F.  BOWERS  M.D. 


yTutnor  of 

'side  stepping  ill  health." 
"Alcohol- ITS  influence  on  mind 

AND  BODY." 
"zone  THERAPVrETC. 


NEW  YORK 

BRITTON    PUBLISHING  CO. 

1919 


Copyright,  1919 
By  Britton  Publishing  Company 


r> 


INTRODUCTION 

OR  five  hundred  thousand  years  or  more 

human  beings  have  been  going  to  sleep. 

But  only  within  a  few  score  years  have 

they  had  any  definite  idea  zvhy  they  slept. 

Even  to-day,  with  all  the  data  of  experience,  and 

the  science  that  explains  experience,  the  average  man 

knows  nothing  about  sleep  as  a  process.     And  science 

knows  but  little  more. 

There  are  any  number  of  theories  to  account  for 
sleep.  But  there  is  no  general  acceptance  of  any  of 
these  theories.  The  contentions  of  one  school  are 
ridiculed  by  the  adherents  of  all  other  schools. 

So  the  average  man,  bewildered  by  the  maze  of 
contradictions,  scuttles  out  of  range  of  the  contenders, 
composes  himself,  and — goes  to  sleep.  He  follows  his 
instinct — therefore  he  is  eternally  right. 

In  these  pages  I  propose  to  consider,  not  so  much 
the  speculative  and  theoretical  aspects  of  sleep,  as  to 
point  out  certain  practical  aspects  of  the  matter — 
things  that  everybody  knows,  but  didn't  know  they 
knew  until  they  were  reminded  of  them. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  practical  treatment  of  such  an 
eminently  practical  subject  as  sleep  may  be  helpful  to 

V 


thousands  who  are  a  httle  short  on  this  very  neces- 
sary thing. 

Especially  if  these  thousands  have  been  pursuing  the 
uneven  tenor  of  their  ways,  unconscious  of  tlie  fact 
that  by  reforming  certain  habits  and  practices,  both 
the  quantity  and  the  cjuality  of  their  sleep  might  be 
improved. 

For  there  is  nothing.  T  am  convinced,  that  will  in- 
crease happiness,  health  and  well-being  much  faster, 
and  make  them  adliere  more  permanently,  than  to  in- 
crease the  real  rest  fulness  and  constructive  usefulness 
of  sleep. 


VI 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I — Why  We  Sleep 1 

"         II — An  Explanation  of  Sleep 8 

"       III— What  Sleep  Does 15 

IV— How  Much  is  "Enough  Sleep"? 24 

''         V — The  Fine  Art  of  Sleeping  Soundly.  ...  32 

■'       VI — Dreams  and  Their  Causes 41 

;'      VII— The  Terror  that  Comes  in  the  Night ...  52 

^^  VIII — Sleep- Walking  and  Sleep- Working 63 

IX— Why  Some  People  are  '"Light  Sleepers"  74 

X— What  Bad  Sleep  Does  to  Good  Health.  85 

T"^     XI — Curing  the  Insomniac 92 

"     XII— "Sleeping  Out"   110 

"    XIII— The  Evolution  of  the  Bed 114 

"    XIV — Separate  Beds  as  Health  Conserv^ators .  122 


VII 


Circular  Bed  of  a  Chinese  Mandarin— reproduced  by  permission  from  photo- 
graph  in  the  Art  Collections  ^f  ihe  New  York  Public  Library. 


t^^-^"     '.^,:::?ir  T^^rrT^/'/jr/Jhifl  J    Egyptian    Bed, 


frame 

filled    in   with 

braided  flax. 


Chapter  I 

WHY  WE  SLEEP 

I  VERY  move  we  make  causes  us  to  spend 

a  certain  amount  of  vitality — every  thought 

we  think  squeezes  a  Httle  Hfe  out  of  us. 

This    loss    is    partly    made    up    by    the 

food  we  eat,  the  fluid  we  drink  and  the  air  we  breathe. 

But  it  is  chiefly  during  sleep  that  the  life  principle 

flows  back  into  us — that  our  loss  in  vitality  is  made 

good. 

So  wonderfully  adjusted  is  this  principle  of  restora- 
tion that  our  balance  in  the  Bank  of  Life  might  at  any 
time  be  computed  by  merely  striking  a  balance  between 
what  we  spend  of  our  vitality  during  our  waking  life, 
and  what  we  regain  of  this  loss  during  the  night — 
multiplied  by  the  length  of  time  we  have  kept  up  this 
pace. 

The  answer  will  be  found  in  terms  of  decreased  re- 
sistance to  mental  or  physical  strain;  in  greater  sus- 


SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 


ceptibility  to  infections  and  all  forms  of  disease;  in 
lowered  vitality;  in  increased  nervous  irritability;  in 
everything  that  makes  for  a  downward  drag,  instead 
of  an  upward  push. 

In  golden  words  poets  of  all  the  ages  have  eulogized 
this  marvelous  reconstructive  power  of  sleep.  Phy- 
sicians recognize  its  curative  properties  so  clearly  that 
it  has  become  an  unwritten  law  that,  not  even  to  take 
medicine,  is  a  sleeping  patient  ever  to  be  wakened. 
And  this  is  the  greatest  tribute  Medicine  could  pos- 
sibly pay  to  the  drowsy  god,  Somnus. 

About  sleep  itself,  and  what  it  does,  we  know  a 
great  deal.  But,  strange  as  this  may  seem  to  the 
average  man,  who  has  always  taken  sleep  for  granted, 
we  know  very  little  about  the  cause  of  sleep. 

True,  we  have  any  number  of  theories  which  seem 
to  account  for  sleep.  But  all  of  these,  on  close  analy- 
sis, disclose  some  points  of  weakness,  some  contra- 
dictions, which  leave  the  matter  pretty  well  up  in  the 
air.  These  contradictions  and  discrepancies  furnish 
adherents  of  all  the  other  beliefs  with  tough  knohbv 
clubs  wherewith  to  fight  cheerfully  and  enthusiastically 
for  their  own  pet  convictions. 

But  after  all  the  pother  and  contention  the  nature 
and  causes  of  sleep  are  still  a  mystery.  That  there  arc 
certain  ])hysical  and  clu-mical  changes  in  the  brain  and 
body  during  sleep  is  undeniable.    But  that  any  of  these 


WHY  WE  SLEEP 


account  for  all  the  phenomena  of  sleep  is  gravely  to 
be  questioned. 

The  one  point  upon  which  all — scientist  as  well  as 
laborer — agree  is  that  we  sleep  because  we  are  tired 
and  sleepy,  and  we  wake  naturally  when  we  are  rested 
and  refreshed. 

But  just  what  it  is  that  makes  us  tired  and  sleepy, 
and  just  what  happens  that  washes  us  in  this  bath  of 
life  are  mooted  questions. 

"One  theory,  rather  widely  accepted,  is  that  during 
sleep  there  is  a  diminution  in  the  volume  and  velocity 
of  blood  in  tlie  brain,  and  that  this  temporary  anemia 
is  the  physical  basis  of  sleep.  This  is  similar  to  the 
condition  one  would  be  in  while  unconscious  from 
fainting,  or  from  any  like  cause. 

The  advocates  of  this  theory  of  sleep  explain  in- 
somnia as  the  opposite  to  this  anemic  state — alleging 
that  during  attacks  of  sleeplessness  there  is  an  ex- 
cessive amount  of  blood  in  the  brain,  together  with  an 
increased  blood  pressure,  and  a  more  rapid  flow 
through  the  blood  vessels. 

This  theory  ignores  the  fact  that  sleep,  deep  enough 
to  amount  to  actual  stupor,  is  frequently  associated 
with  fevers  and  with  congestions  of  the  membranes 
that  cover  the  brain.  And  it  is  only  after  the  applica- 
tion of  an  ice  cap — or  some  other  local  measure  for 
relieving  this   fullness  of  blood — that  these  sleepers 


SLEEPIXG  FOR  HEALTH 


really  wake  up — in  the  sense  of  becoming  once  more 
rational  and  conscious  of  their  surroundings. 

Again,  there  are  any  number  of  cases  of  insomnia 
in  which  the  pulse  is  slow  and  feeble,  and  the  circu- 
lation sluggish  as  a  consequence,  that  are  relieved  by 
a  stimulant,  which  sends  an  increased  supply  of  blood 
to  all  parts  of  the  body — including  the  brain. 

Those  are  the  conditions  so  frequently  relieved  by 
the  "night-cap,"  without  which — or  lacking  some 
stimulant  to  take  its  place — many  middle-aged  indi- 
viduals might  lose  considerably  more  sleep  than  they 
now  do. 

But  even  if  anemia  of  the  brain  was  the  cause  of 
sleep  we  cannot  understand  sleep  unless  we  know  the 
cause  of  the  anemia.  For  this  would  be  on  a  par  with 
defining  pigs  as  pigs — and  letting  it  go  at  that. 
yh-  Another  theory  which  has  won  favor  recently  is 
that  sleep  is  caused  by  the  alteration  of  certain  little 
*'horns"  or  prolongations  of  the  cells  or  units  of  which 
the  brain  is  largely  composed. 

The  idea  is  that  each  of  these  nerve  cells  has  a 
number  of  little  processes,  jutting  out  from  its  side, 
like  the  feet  on  a  "thousand-legger." 

These  "dendrites,"  as  they  are  called,  come  in  con- 
tact with  the  dendrites  of  their  neighbor  cells,  and 
thus  form  a  continuous  chain  of  cells  in  touch  with  one 
another. 


WHY  WE  SLEEP  5 

While  they  are  continuous  the  current  (or  whatever 
it  is  that  constitutes  the  vital  stimulus)  that  is  neces- 
sary to  a  state  of  wakefulness,  flows  through,  naturally 
and  harmoniously. 

When  the  cells  have  been  active,  spending  vitality 
in  various  directions,  it  is  contended  that  they  shrink 
in  size.  Their  filaments  or  dendrites  shrink  away  from 
one  another. 

Contact  is  broken.  And  the  consciousness  that 
flowed  over  and  through  them  is  cut  off — just  as  the 
flow  of  water  would  be  cut  off  through  a  garden  hose 
if  one  were  to  step  on  it. 

There  may  be  some  truth  in  this  theory,  but  it  is 
one  of  those  things,  as  Lord  Dundreary  said,  that  "no 
fellow  can  find  out."  For  it  would  be  a  very  difficult 
job  to  cut  off  a  head  and  examine  the  brain  cells,  and 
then  put  the  head  to  sleep  and  see  just  how  these  cells 
have  shrunk — if  they  have  shrunk. 

The  theory  recently  brought  forth  by  Professor 
Claparede  is  even  more  metaphysical  than  the  shrink- 
ing-nerve-filament  theory. 

This  is  generally  called  the  "biological  theory,"  and 
contends  that  sleep  is  merely  a  phenomenon  of  nature 
that  provides  the  organism  with  a  reaction  of  defense 
to  prevent  fatigue. 

In  other  words,  Claparede  and  his  followers  contend 
that  sleep  is  an  instinct,  and  that  we  go  to  sleep,  not 


SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 


because  we  are  tired  and  need  to  sleep,  but  because  we 
can't  help  it. 

The  need  for  sleep  did  not  always  exist,  they  say, 
and  sleep  itself  is  not  an  essential  to  life.  The  instinct 
to  sleep  developed  because  those  animals  whose  periods 
of  activity  were  broken  up  by  intervals  of  repose  were 
favored  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

They  were  enabled,  during  these  periods  of  in- 
activity, to  accumulate  energy,  and  consequently  dis- 
play more  ambition  and  stamina  in  seeking  food,  pre- 
serving their  lives,  perpetuating  their  species — or  what 
not. 

This,  it  seems,  clearly  implies  that  sleep  is  neces- 
sary and  beneficial,  and  that  there  must  naturally  exist 
some  impulse  toward  sleep  which  no  highly  organized 
animal  can  ignore. 

The  profoundly  reasoned  theory  of  Dr.  Claparede 
might,  with  equal  justice,  be  applied  to  the  function 
of  eating.  To  claim  that  eating  is  only  an  instinct, 
developed  in  the  process  of  evolution  for  the  purpose 
of  conserving  energy,  is  no  more  ridiculous  than  to 
claim  that  sleeping  is  an  instinct  of  similar  develop- 
ment. 

One  of  the  most  sensible  and  convincing  of  all  the 
theories  to  account  for  sleep  is  the  so-called  "chemical 
theory." 

This  explanation  concerns  itself  with  the  fact  that 


WHY  WE  SLEEP 


every  contraction  or  expansion  of  any  muscle  cell, 
every  nervous  impulse  that  passes  through  any  brain 
or  nerve  cell,  causes  a  certain  amount  of  breaking  down 
of  tissue  in  these  cells. 

This  broken  down  tissue  is  thrown  into  the  blood 
stream,  to  be  gotten  rid  of  through  the  lungs,  skin, 
kidneys  or  bowels — the  four  great  avenues  of  elimina- 
tion. The  more  actively  brain  or  muscles  are  used, 
the  quicker  they  break  down,  the  more  rapidly  the  blood 
becomes  overloaded  with  these  toxic  products,  the 
more  completely  the  nerves  and  body  are  poisoned  by 
them. 

During  sleep  the  cells  and  tissues  that  produce  these 
poisonous  products  are  at  rest — all  destructive  activity 
is  suspended.  At  the  same  time  there  is  going  on 
within  the  body  a  constructive  activity,  a  rebuilding  of 
broken-down  structure,  a  replacing  of  vital  losses,  a 
reinforcing  of  lessened  defense.  Which  makes  of  sleep 
one  of  the  most  interesting  and  vital  processes  that  a 
human  being  or  any  other  organism  can  possibly  en- 
gage in.  These  processes  will  be  described  in  another 
chapter. 


Chapter  II 


AN  EXPLANATION  OF  SLEEP 


HERE  is  one  theory  to  account  for  sleep 
which  I  do  not  beheve  has  yet  been  ad- 
vanced. At  least  it  hasn't  in  any  work  with 
which  I  am  familiar. 
Nevertheless,  after  several  years'  consideration  of 
the  subject,  I  am  convinced  that  this  theory  of  mine 
offers  a  solution  which  is  sound  and  eminently  prac- 
tical— so  far  as  any  hypothesis  or  theory  can  be  deemed 
practical. 

This  theory  is  based  upon  studies  in  the  phenomena 
of  sleep,  and  is  founded  upon  a  principle  that  scientific 
men  everywhere  are  now  accepting — the  principle  of 
vibration. 

For  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  many  of  the  world's 
greatest  scientists  concede  that  what  we  know  as  "mat- 
ter" is  merely  a  form  of  vibration,  just  as  are  light 

8 


AN  EXPLANATION  OF  SLEEP 


and  sound.  In  other  words,  matter  is  a  "mode  of  mo- 
tion." Matter,  it  is  contended,  is  stable  only  so  long 
as  there  is  no  interference  with  its  normal  rhythm. 
What  we  know  as  "matter"  retains  the  characteristics 
peculiar  to  its  form  only  while  it  vibrates  at  a  rate 
normal  to  itself.  If  this  rate  of  vibration  could  be 
materially  retarded  or  increased,  the  substance  would 
be  molecularly  altered,  and  cease  to  be  "matter" — as 
we  knew  it  originally. 

Most  scientists  agree  that  physical  phenomena — like 
heat,  sound,  light — are  all  different  because  they  have 
a  rate  of  vibration  differing  from  one  another. 

Now,  if  light,  sound,  heat  and  matter  are  merely 
manifestations  of  a  different  rate  of  vibration,  why 
might  not  this  hypothesis  be  extended  to  include  every- 
thing, animate  or  inanimate,  organic  or  inorganic,  visi- 
ble or  invisible  ?  For,  the  electron  units  comprising  the 
billions  of  cells  making  up  our  body,  including  nerve- 
tissues,  must  have  an  inherent  rate  of  vibration  which 
is  normal  to  each  of  them.  Vibrating  below  or  above 
this  rate,  the  cells  would  cease  to  functionate  normally. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  standard  minimum  and  maxi- 
mum rate  of  vibration  represents  the  activity  of  a 
living  healthy  cell.  Between  these  two  extremes  the 
cell  functions  with  healthy  energy  and  physiological 
vigor;  the  "life-force" — that  unknown,  and,  perhaps, 


10  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

unknowable  principle  regulating  these  oscillations — 
can  manifest  itself  without  hindrance. 

As  long  as  these  conditions  continue,  the  aggrega- 
tion of  cells  that  we  call  the  body  will  be  "alive"  and 
"healthy."  Between  certain  narrow  limits  of  fluctua- 
tion in  the  vibratory  rate,  life  and  health  will  persist. 

Perhaps  this  may  never  be  mechanically  demon- 
strable; indeed,  I  can  conceive  of  no  possible  means 
of  estimating  the  rate  of  vibration  in  a  speck  of  pro- 
toplasm. In  the  case  of  solid  bodies,  this  difficulty 
does  not  exist,  for  the  reason  that  these  substances 
produce  a  definite  impact  upon  a  diaphragm,  the  rate 
of  which  is  measurable. 

Now,  as  we  have  seen  in  another  chapter,  perhaps 
the  best  explanation  of  sleep  is  that  the  processes  of 
active  life  cause  a  breaking  down  of  the  cell-structure, 
which  loads  the  system  with  such  a  quantity  of  "fatigue 
toxins"  that  the  cells  are  poisoned  by  their  own  end- 
products.  During  sleep  these  are  eliminated  through 
the  lungs  and  pores,  the  liver  and  kidneys,  and  are 
prepared  for  elimination  through  other  channels.  Also, 
cell  repair  progresses  much  more  rapidly  during  sleep 
than  during  the  waking-hours. 

But,  here's  an  important  point  which  has  hitherto 
been  ignored  or  overlooked  by  physiologists:  We  can 
force  active  elimination  from  all  channels  during  the 
waking  hours.     Also,  the  inhalation  of  oxygen  will 


AN  EXPLAXATIOX  OF  SLEEP 1_1 

burn  up  the  fatigue-poisons  more  rapidly  even  than 
they  are  consumed  during  sleep. 

Yet,  we  know  that  sleep  is  a  necessity,  and  that  no 
amount  of  mechanical  or  chemical  stimulation,  no 
amount  of  artificial  combustion  of  end-products,  no 
amount  of  cell  irritation  can  take  its  place. 

We  know,  also,  that  during  the  active,  or,  perhaps 
more  accurately,  the  wakeful  life  (for  while  there  is 
life  there  is  activity),  nerve  structures  shrink  and  nerve 
filaments  no  longer  interlock  so  as  to  convey  the 
nervous  impulses  unimpeded  to  the  brain.  Replenish- 
ing vital  force  through  sleep  may  stimulate  a  normal 
rate  of  vibration,  and  thereby  equalize  nutrition.  This 
may  expand  the  nerve-nuclei  and  filaments  so  that  once 
more  they  can  interlock  and  convey  the  nervous  im- 
pulses. 

Consider  now  another  point  connected  with  sleep. 
Physiologists  contend  that  energy  develops  from  the 
food  we  eat,  the  air  we  breathe,  and  the  water  we 
drink;  while,  during  sleep,  the  ashes  and  clinkers  are 
removed  from  the  fire-box  of  our  complicated  physical 
machinery.  Concerning  the  first  three  articles  of  this 
creed,  there  can  be  no  legitimate  contention.  The  body 
admittedly  derives  energy  from  food,  air,  and  water; 
they  are  absolutely  indispensable  to  its  welfare.  But 
to  the  statement  that  sleep  merely  affords  a  more  favor- 
able opportunity  for  oxidizing  effete  material — burn- 


12  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

ing  up  and  throwing  out  the  slag  and  refuse — I  take 
exception. 

For  we  know  the  slag  can  be  eliminated  by  means 
of  forced  oxygenation.  This,  occasionally,  is  done 
with  bicycle-riders  and  six-day  runners,  who  are  lib- 
erally stimulated  with  oxygen,  in  order  that  they  may 
better  endure  the  horrible  tortures  of  their  stupid  over- 
w^ork  and  lack  of  sleep.  They  thus  burn  up  their 
fatigue-poisons  and  so,  for  a  time,  postpone  nature's 
imperious  demand  for  sleep.  But  this  postponement 
can  be  for  a  few  days  only.  The  sleep  must  be  made 
up,  if  the  athlete  is  not  to  break  down  or  lose  his  mind. 

Now  if  food,  water,  and  air  supply  energy,  and  if 
we  can  get  rid  of  the  products  of  cell  destruction  by 
forced  oxygenation,  sweating,  and  other  means,  why 
should  we  need  sleep? 

May  it  not  be  that  during  sleep  the  human  dynamo, 
the  vital  system,  is  recharging  itself,  is  accumulating 
another  supply  of  vitality?  To  my  mind  the  inference 
is  plain. 

During  sleep  the  rate  of  vibration  is  equalized — or, 
more  accurately,  normalized — by  the  development 
within  the  body  and  the  absorption  into  the  system  of 
a  definite  amount  of  vital  force.  This  vital  force,  by 
the  way,  does  not  seem  to  come  under  the  natural  laws 
of  conservation,  but  may,  more  appropriately,  be 
classed  as  a  form  of  "cosmic  energy."    Therefore,  re- 


AN  EXPLANATION  OF  SLEEP 13 

peated  shocks  upon  the  nerve-cells  during  the  waking 
life  will  partly  exhaust  the  vital  force  itself,  so  that  it 
no  longer  can  stimulate  the  normal  rate  of  vibration. 

This  explanation  seems  more  likely  when  we  recall 
that  the  longest  anyone  can  be  kept  awake  without 
dying  or  becoming  insane  is  ten  days.  By  the  expira- 
tion of  this  time  the  vibrations  may  have  become  too 
weak  longer  to  furnish  force  for  the  organism,  and 
the  victim  succumbs  to  this  most  horrible  form  of 
punishment. 

Sleep,  then,  is  necessary,  in  order  to  permit  the  vital 
forces  to  crank  again  the  nervous  engine — to  replenish 
once  more  the  exhausted  vital  forces  and  to  permit  the 
rate  of  vibration  in  all  the  billions  of  particles  of  mat- 
ter comprising  our  nerves  and  bodies  once  more  to 
become  normal. 

The  more  profound  the  sleep  the  more  rapidly  this 
is  effected.  The  more  thoroughly  the  normal  rate  of 
vibration  is  restored  the  more  harmoniously  and  per- 
fectly all  the  functions  of  mind  and  body  will  be 
carried  out.  And  the  more  completely  these  functions 
are  carried  out  the  handsomer  and  healthier  and  hap- 
pier we  will  all  be. 


Bed  of  Mary  Stuart,  Quern   of   Scotland,   now  iii    Holyroad  Palace,  Edin- 
burgh— reproduced  by  permission  from  photograph  in  the  Art  Collections  of 
the  New  York  Public  Library. 


,     .-.  -^  'J  Horas  Economics 
'  University  of  CV.ifomia 
405  mWsi  A^'onue  _ 
Los  Angeles  24,  California 


Chapter  III 

WHAT  SLEEP  DOES 

[HEN  we  cease  theorizing  upon  what  sleep 

is  and  consider  what  sleep  does  we  leave 

the  realms  of  speculation  and  come  right 

down  to  fundamentals.     We  get  both  feet 

firmly  planted  on  solid  ground. 

There  is  nothing  upon  which  a  greater  number  of 
people  will  agree  than  that  sleep  does  certain  things  to 
us  that  are  wonderfully  beneficial  and  health-compell- 
ing. We  may  not  know  why  they  do  this,  but  we 
know  they  do.  This  is  out  of  the  great  advances  which 
science  has  made  within  the  present  generation. 

For  until  very  recently  even  scientists  have  regarded 
sleep  as  a  purely  negative  process.  When  we  slept  it 
was  believed  that  bodily  functions  ceased — that  we 
were  busy  doing  nothing. 

In  fact,  so  sure  were  we  that  time  spent  in  sleeping 
was  a  sort  of  theft  of  producing  power,  that  a  certain 
odium  has  crept  into  our  conception  of  sleep,  the  term 
"sleepy-head"  carries  a  definite  measure  of  reproach. 
We  feel  a  decent  amount  of  sympathy  with  the  farmer 

15 


16 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

who,  after  feeding  the  pigs,  milking  the  cows,  clean- 
ing the  horses,  and  doing  a  few  more  odds  and  ends 
of  chores,  greeted  his  new  hired  man  sidling  into  the 
barn  about  7  A.  M.  with,  "Well,  where  in  thunder  ha' 
you  been  all  forenoon?" 

But  the  old  order  changeth,  and  our  ideas  change 
with  it.  The  conviction  is  gradually  gaining  ground 
that  no  one  ever  got  too  much  healthy  natural  sleep 
or  did  himself  any  harm  by  remaining  in  bed  until  he 
felt  rested. 

We  are  steering  clear  of  those  bdwhiskered  old  saws 
that  extolled  the  wonders  and  advantages  of  early 
rising  to  a  heavy-eyed  race,  and  we  are  taking  a  lesson 
from  old  Mother  Nature  in  learning  to  follow  our  in- 
stincts. We  are  finding  out  that  when  we  do  follow 
these  natural  impulses  always  we  are  right.  And 
sooner  or  later  science  wakes  up,  rubs  its  eyes,  says 
"heigh-ho"  a  few  times,  and  then  corroborates  what 
our  instincts  have  always  taught  us. 

We  now  know  that  sleep,  far  from  being  the  "death 
of  life,"  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  all  living 
functions — the  thing  that  makes  life  possible. 

Instead  of  being  a  negative  process  it  is  a  very  posi- 
tive one;  instead  of  stopping  all  activities  it  only  starts 
a  new  and  tremendously  important  set  of  activities. 

Sleep  substitutes  for  the  destructive  processes  of 
active    life   constructive    measures.      It   reverses   the 


WHAT  SLEEP  DOES 17 

downward  trend  that  accompanies  waking  life.  It  lifts 
us  back  to  the  top  of  that  physiological  toboggan  down 
which  we  commenced  to  slide  the  moment  we  got  up. 
It  recharges  the  exhausted  body  batteries  and  fills  the 
organic  furnace  with  fresh  fuel,  for  the  "anabolic"  or 
building-up  processes  are  in  excess  of  the  "katabolic" 
or  breaking-down  processes  during  sleep. 

In  short,  sleep,  instead  of  being  the  waste  of  time 
and  the  necessary  evil  that  we  fatuously  think  we  de- 
serve medals  for  curtailing,  is  the  most  important  thing 
in  the  world — more  important  even  than  food.  For  we 
eat  to  sleep,  but  we  sleep  to  live. 

Men  have  gone  63  days  without  food,  and  a  week 
without  water.  But  they  usually  die  in  less  than  10 
days  if  totally  deprived  of  sleep.  It  is  said  that  rarely 
do  the  victims  of  the  Chinese  torturers  keep  their 
reason  after  the  fifth  or  sixth  day  of  their  enforced 
wakefulness. 

Our  own  infamous  "third  degree"  is  successful  for 
the  same  reason  that  the  Chinese  method  of  punishing 
grave  offenders  is  successful.  It  isn't  humanly  pos- 
sible long  to  withstand  the  torture  of  loss  of  sleep. 
To  gain  respite  from  the  continuous  brutal  day  and 
night  questionings,  the  victim,  to  obtain  sleep,  will 
agree  to  anything  and  sign  any  sort  of  a  confession. 
And  some  fine  day,  when  we  become  really  civilized, 


18  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

this  barbarism  will  go  the  way  of  the  thumbscrew,  the 
rack,  and  the  Iron  Maiden. 

It  is  during  sleep  that  the  final  transformation  of 
food  into  tissue  is  effected — that  the  finished  product 
of  digestion  is  finally  converted  into  new  muscle, 
brains,  blood  and  nerve  cells. 

This  explains  the  fattening  influence  of  sleep,  and 
shows  why  the  dietitian,  in  attempting  to  reduce  an 
overly-corpulent  patient  to  reasonable  proportions,  first 
cuts  down  his  hours  of  sleep. 

Loss  of  sleep  is  really  a  form  of  starvation,  not  to 
be  made  up  by  increasing  the  amount  of  food  taken 
into  the  system.  "Endurance  racers"  prove  this  in  an 
interesting  and  convincing  manner.  Those  engaged  in 
six-day  bicycle  races  and  other  half-witted  forms  of 
diversion  eat  four  or  five  times  as  much  food  as  the 
ordinary  man.  Yet  the  end  of  the  contest  finds  them 
hollow-eyed  and  cadaverous.  Loss  of  sleep — even 
more  than  their  physical  exertions — has  prevented 
them  from  transforming  food  into  tissue. 

It  is  this  positive  reconstructive  quality  in  sleep  that 
explains  why  babies,  whose  chief  business  in  life  is 
to  grow,  spend  from  16  to  18  hours  out  of  every  24 
in  sleeping,  a  capacity  which  gradually  diminishes  as 
maturity  is  approached,  until  it  finally  settles  down 
around  the  average  of  9  hours. 

It  is  the  loss  of  this  reconstructive  power  that  ac- 


WHAT  SLEEP  DOES  19 

counts  for  the  short  hours  of  sleep  and  the  hght 
character  of  the  sleep  of  the  aged.  Old  people  do  not 
sleep  lightly  and  get  up  early  because  they  don't  need 
sleep,  but  because  they  can't  get  it.  They  have  lost  the 
power  of  reconstruction  that  goes  with  sleep — and 
consequently  the  function  of  sleep  itself  is  partly 
abolished. 

The  cat-naps  and  dozings  of  old  people  are  not  true 
sleep.  They  are  really  little  torpors  due  to  weakness 
and  exhaustion  of  the  vital  functions,  and  poisoning 
from  faulty  elimination.  They  foreshadow  the  final 
end  of  consciousness. 

The  deeper  the  sleep  the  quicker  the  recuperation, 
and  the  more  effectively  all  the  vital  processes  of  re- 
pair are  carried  out.  The  lighter  and  more  disturbed 
the  sleep  the  slower  the  recuperation  from  fatigue  and 
the  longer  it  takes  to  effect  repair. 

This  explains  the  differences  in  the  quality  of  sleep, 
something  that  everyone  has  noted.  It  explains  why 
sometimes  a  little  sleep  of  an  hour  or  two  under  con- 
ditions of  complete  relaxation  will  accomplish  more 
actual  reconstruction  than  a  whole  night's  restless, 
dream-racked  sleep. 

It  also  explains  why  some  vigorous  individuals,  who 
sleep  deeply  and  whole-heartedly,  are  able  to  recuperate 
fully  and  be  fresh  and  thoroughly  rested  after  4  or  5 
hours'  sleep.    While  others  who  sleep  "light,"  with  one 


20  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

eye  always  open  for  dangers  that  creep  out  of  their 
atavistic  memories  or  their  active  imaginations,  re- 
quire 9  or  10  hours,  or  even  12  or  13  hours,  to  ac- 
complish even  less. 

Indeed,  these  exceptional  individuals  who  for  years 
on  end  have  been  able  to  do  a  tremendous  amount  of 
work  on  4  or  5  hours'  sleep  nightly,  have  set  a  pace 
which  has  been  distinctly  injurious  to  the  race  as  a 
whole.  Their  iniquitous  example  has  established  false 
standards,  until  it  has  become  almost  a  reproach  to  be 
a  10-hour-a-day  sleeper. 

Morbid  conditions,  such  as  the  drowsiness,  or  the 
unconsciousness  of  fever  and  other  abnormal  states, 
must  not  be  confused  with  true  sleep.  These  are 
merely  manifestations  of  systemic  poisoning.  In  no 
sense  are  they  reconstructive  processes. 

A  victim  of  typhoid  fever,  for  instance,  may  lie  in 
what  seems  to  be  a  sleep  for  2  weeks,  and  finally 
awake  to  real  consciousness  with  a  loss  of  a  score  or 
two  pounds  in  weight,  and  as  "limp  as  a  dishrag."  In 
all  this  time  he  may  have  had  little  real  sleep. 

The  unconsciousness  produced  by  taking  hypnotic 
drugs  is  of  somewhat  similar  character  and  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  true  reconstructive  sleep. 

True  reconstructive  sleep  also  restores  the  oxygen 
balance  in  tlic  tissues.  Tliis  has  a  most  important 
bearing  upon  our  state  of  health. 


WHAT  SLEEP  DOES 21 

During  the  day  the  brain  cells  use  up  more  oxygen 
than  can  be  supplied  them  through  the  blood  and  the 
lungs.  This  oxygen  starvation,  to  which  the  cells  are 
subjected,  is  one  of  the  things  that  helps  bring  the 
unconsciousness  of  sleep. 

During  sleep  more  oxygen  is  taken  into  the  system 
than  is  spent.  After  a  certain  period  of  time — depend- 
ing upon  one's  lung  capacity  and  the  depth  of  breath- 
ing, the  freshness  of  the  sleeping  chamber,  and  the 
number  of  red  cells  in  the  blood  to  carry  oxygen  to 
the  tissues — for  this  is  the  only  way  oxygen  is  con- 
veyed through  the  body — the  oxygen  loss  is  made  up 
the  balance  is  restored. 

The  matter  works  itself  out  on  something  like  this 
basis.  During  each  24  hours,  the  total  outgo  and  intake 
of  oxygen  is  60%  given  off,  as  against  only  40% 
taken  in.  During  the  sleeping  hours,  nearly  60%  of 
oxygen  is  taken  in,  as  against  40%  given  off. 

So,  during  active  making  life  the  body  spends  20  to 
40%  more  oxygen  than  it  takes  in,  while  during  sleep 
it  reverses  these  figures  and  absorbs  20  to  40%  more 
oxygen  than  it  gives  off. 

Actually,  the  sleep  period  represents  the  time  re^ 
quired  to  restore  the  oxygen  balance  in  the  tissues, 
recharge  the  organic  batteries,  build  up  the  broken 
down  tissue,  and  oxidize  and  otherwise  get  rid  of 
accumulated  fatigue  poisons. 


22 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

From  which  it  will  be  seen  that  to  calculate  how 
long  sleep  should  last  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
world. 

The  answer  is  "until  all  these  processes  are  com- 
pleted." And  the  only  one  who  knows  the  answer  is 
the  sleeper  himself.    When  you're  rested  you'll  get  up. 

If  you  don't  feel  rested  after  a  decent  interval  of 
sleep  it  may  be  because  you've  been  trying  to  sleep  in 
a  bed  that  creaks  or  rattles  ever  so  little,  and  doesn't 
let  you  relax.  This  keeps  the  nerves  on  edge,  and 
doesn't  permit  real  restful  slumber.  Another  reason 
for  light  unrefreshing  sleep  is  lack  of  oxygen.  Your 
bedroom  may  be  stuffy  and  ill-ventilated.  Or  you  may 
be  anemic,  run  down  and  debilitated — and  should  see 
a  doctor. 

There  is  also  a  diminution  in  the  amount  of  heat 
produced  during  sleep,  which  explains  why  we  need 
more  covering  at  night  than  during  our  active  life. 
This  decreased  production  of  heat  is  largely  accounted 
for  by  the  quiet  condition  of  the  muscles.  But  it  also 
indicates  diminished  tissue  changes  throughout  the 
body.  In  very  profound  sleep  this  temperature  reduc- 
tion may  amount  to  as  high  as  from  .2°  to  .6°  Fahren- 
heit. 

To  spend  more  energy — especially  nervous  energy — 
in  a  day  than  one  can  restore  in  a  night's  sleep  is  to 
be  headed   fnr  j)liysical  bankruptcy.     Even  the  loss  of 


WHAT  SLEEP  DOES 23 

one  night's  sleep  effects  the  nervous  system  of  many. 
It  causes  sleepiness  and  mental  irritability.  Food 
d'oesn't  digest  so  well.  There  is  a  general  lack  of 
"punch"  that  usually  takes  more  than  a  good  night's 
sleep  to  build  back. 

Modern  conditions,  with  their  anxieties,  cares  and 
hurries,  are  causing  much  nervous  instability — directly 
traceable  to  lack  of  proper  sleep.  Never  before  was 
there  a  time  when  people  needed  to  sleep  so  long  and 
so  "hard"  in  order  to  build  up  vitality  wasted'  in  our 
intensive  methods  of  living  than  right  now. 

The  man  who  continuously  loses  in  the  quantity  of 
the  sleep  he  requires  is  laboring  under  a  handicap  that 
will  diminish  his  chances  of  success  in  life.  The 
woman  who  habitually  is  disturbed  in  her  rest,  and  in 
its  duration,  will  make  a  failure  of  her  children. 

We  need'  all  the  sound,  restful,  refreshing  sleep  we 
can  get.  Sleep  builds  health — health  brings  wealth, 
beauty,  and  happiness. 


Chapter  IV 


HOW  MUCH  IS  "ENOUGH  SLEEP"? 


[OST  of  us  think  of  the  up-and-doing  chap 
as  an  aggressive,  fighting- jawed  individual 
who  arises  early  enough  every  morning  to 
wake  the  robins  up  for  breakfast.  Always 
we  think  of  a  hero  as  a  lithe  young  fellow  who  gets 
along  on  a  minimum  amount  of  sleep. 

All  our  asinine  old  proverbs  pin  figurative  ribbons 
of  honor  upon  the  poor  dolt  who  "short  changes"  him- 
self on  sleep  to  win  the  fatuous  approbation  of  whom- 
ever happens  to  find  out  how  saving  he  is  with  this 
commodity. 

We  have  heard  about  Napoleon.  Frederick  the  Great, 
Frederick  Schiller,  Charles  XII.,  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton and  John  Wesley  so  often  that  we  have  come  to 

24 


HOW  MUCH  IS  "ENOUGH  SLEEP" f  25 

believe  that  the  greater  and  the  more  intelligent  a 
man  is  the  less  sleep  he  requires. 

We  have  accepted  that  toothless,  doddering  old 
precept 

"Nature   requires   five, 

Custom  takes  seven, 

Laziness  takes  nine, 

And  wickedness  eleven," 

as  Gospel  truth. 

We  figured  that  Virgil  and  Horace,  Franklin  and 
Priestley,  Bufion  and  Parkhurst,  and  scores  of  other 
notables  in  the  world  of  art,  literature  and  science  did 
their  best  work  on  a  very  moderate  amount  of  sleep. 
Therefore,  why  should  anyone  need  more? 

We  know  that  Sir  Thomas  Moore  got  up  at  four 
every  morning,  and  was  so  delighted  with  the  results 
of  this  practice  that  in  his  famous  book,  "Utopia,"  he 
represented  all  the  poor  inhabitants  of  that  benighted 
land  as  getting  up  and  attending  lectures  before  sun- 
rise.    Think  of  it! 

And  haven't  we  had  Mr.  Edison  and  his  "four  hours 
sleep  out  of  twenty-four"  flaunted  ir..  our  faces  for  the 
past  thirty  years? 

Edison  keeps  a  couch  in  his  workroom,  and  sleeps 
when  he  is  sleepy. — From  which  I  strongly  suspect 
that  if  all  the  little  dozings  and  catnaps  were  added 


25 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

together,  it  would  be  found  that  Mr.  Edison  takes  con- 
siderably more  than  4  hours  out  of  each  24  for  sleeping 
purposes. 

Dr.  Richard  C.  Cabot,  Chief  of  the  Medical  Staff, 
Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  Boston,  one  of  the 
Tery  foremost  medical  men  of  America  says : 

"To  get  the  sleep  one  needs  (which  means  all  that 
one  can  possibly  soak  into  one's  system  within  24 
hours)  often  takes  courage — the  courage  to  refuse  in- 
vitations, to  invite  ridicule,  to  seem  odd  and  "Puri- 
tanic." 

**I  believe  that  more  minor  illnesses  are  due  to  lack 
of  sleep  than  to  any  other  recognizable  factor,  A  per- 
son catches  cold,  gets  lumbago,  is  constipated  or  head- 
ache-ridden because  his  vitality  is  below  par.  His 
physical  expenditure  beyond  his  physical  income.  He 
is  chronically  edging  toward  a  breakdown." 

The  physiological  fact  al^out  sleep  is  that  we  need 
all  we  can  get,  and  should  take  all  we  can  use. 

We  need  have  no  fear  of  getting  too  much — for 
when  we  have  enough  we'll  wake  up — and  we'll  stay 
awake. 

I  am  speaking  now  of  healthy  individuals,  in 
hygienic  surroundings,  in  noiseless,  confidence-inspir- 
ing beds. 

Those  who  arc  poisoned  bv  bad  air,  alcohol,  tobacco, 
the  wrong  kind  of  food  ur  too  much  of  the  right  kind 


HOW  MUCH  IS  "ENOUGH  SLEEP".' 27 

of  food — or  by  any  other  of  the  things  that  increase 
the  muddiness  of  this  "muddy  vesture  of  decay,"  will 
need  more  sleep  than  they  take.  And,  even  then,  they 
won't  have  enough. 

For  it  isn't  sleep  they  need,  but  a  change  of  habit. 

So  the  answer  to  the  question  "How  much  sleep 
should  I  take?"  is  "all  you  can  get."  Follow  your 
instinct.  When  the  oxygen  balance  in  the  tissues  is 
restored,  when  the  fatigue  poisons  are  eliminated  or 
burnt  up  by  the  oxygen,  and  when  the  worn-out  cells 
are  replaced  you'll  wake — rested  and  refreshed.  In 
fact,  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  sleep  any  more — just  then 
— even  if  you  wanted  to. 

On  an  average  most  healthy  grown  persons  require 
about  9  hours'  sleep  in  order  to  be  thoroughly  recuper- 
ated. Women  should  have  a  half  an  hour  or  an  hour 
more  than  men  of  the  same  age. 

But  this  is  entirely  a  matter  of  the  individual's 
power  to  recuperate,  which  depends  largely  upon  the 
depth  of  sleep. 

If  the  sleeping  chamber  is  stuffy  and  ill-ventilated 
no  amount  of  sleep  is  going  to  produce  the  feeling  of 
restedness  that  should  come  from  good,  sound  sleep 
taken  under  hygienic  conditions. 

Of  course  these  hours  of  sleep  do  not  apply  to  chil- 
dren. The  rules  governing  their  sleeping  must  be 
much  more  flexible  than  those  applied  to  adults.    Fast- 


28 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

growing  children  need  more  sleep  than  those  of  slow 
growth.  Children  require  and  should  get  more  sleep 
in  winter  than  in  summer.  And  vigorous  children  need 
less  than  delicate. 

At  a  rough  estimate  it  might  be  said  that  babies 
can  use  15  to  18  hours  out  of  every  24  very  profitably 
in  sleeping.  This  period  gradually  declines,  until  at 
the  third  year,  the  child  requires  about  12  hours.  By 
the  sixth  year,  if  left  to  his  own  good  sensible  instincts, 
he  takes  about  10  hours. 

Up  to  the  18th  or  19th  year  this  10-hour  necessity 
persists.  Growth  being  by  this  time  attained,  the 
sleep  requirements  drop  an  hour  or  more,  and  remain 
there  until  the  advent  of  that  second  childhood,  age,— 
which  reduces  the  period  of  reconstruction  because  the 
reconstructive  faculty  has  been  reduced. 

To  make  children  get  up  before  they  have  had  enough 
restful  sleep  to  thoroughly  refresh  them  is  a  foolish, 
health-destroying  crime  against  the  child,  and  an  insult 
to  Nature.  There's  nothing  we  could  possibly  do — 
unless  it  would  be  to  frighten  them  with  bed-time  talcs 
of  ghosts  or  hobgoblins — that  reacts  more  disastrously 
on  the  nervous  systems  of  children  or  youths  of  either 
sex  than  to  deprive  them  of  needed  sleep.  And  nothing 
that  will  show  the  seeds  of  future  nervous  instability 
more  surely. 

The  best  time   for  sleeping  is  that  time  that  will 


HOW  MUCH  IS  "ENOUGH  SLEEP" t 29 

favor  the  greatest  degree  of  relaxation.  With  most 
people  this  is  some  time  during  the  hours  of  darkness, 
when  there  isn't  so  much  going  on  to  distract  the 
senses  of  sight  and  hearing. 

Just  what  hours  should  be  devoted  to  sleeping  is 
not  as  important  as  that  there  should  be  enough  of 
them.  The  so-called  "beauty  sleep,"  achieved  during 
the  hours  preceding  midnight,  is  a  fact  only  because 
it  adds  to  the  number  of  hours  which,  under  ordinary 
conditions,  we  might  be  supposed  to  spend  in  bed. 
Most  of  us  get  up  at  about  the  same  time  every  morn- 
ing— no  matter  how  early  or  how  late  we've  gone  to 
bed  the  night  before. 

So  there  isn't  a  word  of  truth  in  the  hoary-headed  old 
fable  that  one  hour  of  sleep  before  midnight  is  worth 
any  two  hours  after.  Sleep  is  sleep,  provided  only  that 
it  is  sound,  restful  sleep — whether  we  get  it  at  8  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  2  o'clock  in  the  morning,  or  1  o'clock 
the  next  afternoon. 

It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  when  sleeping  conditions 
are  favorable,  the  depth  of  sleep — as  disclosed  by  the 
amount  of  noise  it  takes  to  awaken  a  sleeper — rapidly 
increases  from  its  beginning  until  the  beginning  of  the 
second  hour,  at  which  time  the  blood  pressure  is  lowest, 
and  the  senses  most  deeply  steeped  in  unconsciousness. 
This  is  the  best  time  for  burglars  and  night-prow^ling 
husbands  to  steal  into  the  house. 


30  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

After  the  first  hour  sleep  diminishes  in  intensity  until 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  hour.  After  which  it 
remains  at  normal  level  until  getting-up  time. 

There  is  no  physiological  connection  between  the 
hours  of  darkness  and  natural  sleep.  Most  of  us  sleep 
o'  nights — because  it  has  become  the  custom  to  earn 
our  living  during  the  day  time. 

But  night-watchmen,  firemen,  newspaper-men,  and 
the  great  army  who  habitually  turn  night  into  day,  sleep 
advantageously  during  the  daylight — provided  crying 
children,  industrious  street  venders,  and  indefatigable 
piano  students  let  them  sleep. 

True,  they  do  sometimes  become  pale  and  anemic. 
But  so  do  prisoners — and  for  the  same  reason — a  lack 
of  the  vivifying  power  of  sunlight. 

That  there  is  any  health  benefit  from  getting  up 
early  is  another  old  wives'  fable — inherited  from  that 
time  when  everybody  was  a  farmer — or  an  ex-farmer, 
with  bucolic  inclinations,  and  a  tendency  to  burn  day- 
light instead  of  candles. 

It  may  be  splendid  and  healthful  to  get  up  at  day- 
light, or  even  earlier,  a  few  selected  summer  mornings, 
for  some  important  purpose — such  as  going  fishing. 

But  that  anyone  ever  gained  a  single  iota  of  health 
or  energy  from  getting  up  before  the  sun  got  up  on 
raw,  foggy,  marrow-congcaHng  winter  mornings,  is 
perfectly  ridiculous  from  every  standpoint  of  physiol- 


HOW  MUCH  IS  "ENOUGH  SLEEP":' 31 

ogy  and  hygiene.  How  its  perpetrators  could  have 
"gotten  away  with  it"  as  long  as  they  did  must  ever 
remain  a  tribute  to  human  credulity  and  unreasonable- 
ness. 

True,  there  is  a  certain  feeling  of  exhilaration  about 
getting  up  with  the  lark,  composed  mostly  of  conscious- 
ness that  one  is  doing  something  praiseworthy.  But, 
each  individual,  at  the  beginning  of  each  working  day, 
has  only  just  so  much  work-power  stored  in  his  tissues. 
The  sooner  he  exhausts  this  the  sooner  he'll  have  to 
stop  work  and  go  back  and  get  more. 

To  get  enough  to  replenish  the  vital  forces — there's 
the  whole  philosophy  of  sleep  in  a  nut  shell.  In  this 
the  safest  of  all  guides  is  instinct,  and  the  application 
of  common  sense  to  our  own  particular  sleeping  prob- 
lems. And  even  these  are  continually  changing  with 
our  habits  and  with  our  environment. 

For  sleeping  is  something  we  never  improve  on  with 
practice.  Notwithstanding  that  we  all  sleep  every  night 
of  our  lives — more  or  less — none  of  us  do  it  any  better 
than  we  did  when  we  were  infants. 

Indeed,  if  only  we  can  sleep  "like  a  child"  we  are 
getting  all  the  sleep  that  reasonably  is  coming  to  us — 
and  of  a  quality  that  is  a  perennial  source  of  joy  and 
satisfaction. 


^.^^ 


A  Bed 
of  the 
Ancient 
Goths. 


Chapter  V 


THE  FINE  ART  OF  SLEEPING  SOUNDLY 


LEEPING  soundly  isn't  so  much  an  art  as 
it  is  a  gift.     The  farmer  lad,  who  com- 
plained that  he  never  enjoyed  a  night's  rest, 
"because  as  soon  as  he  put  his  head  on  the 
pillow  it  was  time  to  get  up  again,"  had  this  gift. 

Men  have  slept  on  the  red  edge  of  the  battle-field, 
with  the  deafening  din  of  cannonading  and  the  hideous 
rapping  of  the  machine  guns  tearing  at  their  ear  drums. 
They  have  slept  sitting  in  the  saddle.  They  have  even 
plodded  stolidly — mile  after  mile  through  forced  night 
marches — sound  asleep. 

In  the  clatter  and  roar  of  the  engine  room  and  in  the 
rattle  of  unsoothing  boiler  shops  men  have  slept,  only 
to  waken  instantly  when  the  slightest  change  in  the 
character  of  the  noises  told  their  listening  souls  that 
something  had  gone  wrong — something  that  required 
their  waking  attention. 

32 


THE  FINE  ART  OF  SLEEPING  SOUNDLY       33 

I  have  even  known  very  sound  sleepers  to  get  a  little 
sleep  after  the  electric  riveter  on  the  building  in  course 
of  erection  across  the  way  started  to  work  in  the  morn- 
ing— ^but  not  often. 

Yet  one  of  the  strangest  things  in  connection  with 
these  noises  is  that  they  break  sleep  more  often  when 
they  stop  than  when  they  are  active. 

Mark  Twain,  when  he  lived  in  New  York,  used  to 
wake  regularly  every  night  at  1  A,  M.  This  was  in 
those  halcyon  days  when  the  elevated  trains  stopped 
running  at  1.  Mark  tells  in  his  delightful  way,  how 
he  used  to  hire  a  boy  to  stand  outside  his  door  and  beat 
on  a  tin  can  until  he  could  get  to  sleep  again — tapering 
the  noise  off  gradually  so  as  not  to  awaken  him. 

And  we  all  know  that  stirring  story  of  the 
"Old  lady  who  lived  by  the  shore, 
Who  at  length  got  so  used  to  the  roar, 
That  she  never  could  sleep  unless  someone  would  keep 
A-pounding  away  at  the  door." 

Nurses  and  doctors  learn  to  sleep  through  all  sorts 
of  noises  that  do  not  concern  their  patient,  only  to 
waken  instantly  if  he  should  turn  in  bed,  or  sigh,  or 
even  change  the  character  of  his  respiration. 

Country  people  visiting  the  city  have  a  difficult  job 
wooing  Morpheus  while  the  street  noises  are  blasting 
away  at  unconsciousness.  We  urbanites  have  an  equal- 
ly difficult  task  getting  sleep  while  bull-frogs  are  croak- 


34  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

ing,  or  while  a  million  locusts  are  industriously  sawing 
away  on  their  strident  abdominal  fiddles. 

It's  a  matter  of  the  mind  and  not  of  the  senses.  For 
familiarity  with  the  usual  sounds  renders  us  insensible 
to  them. 

Read  the  beautiful  apostrophe  to  sleep  that  the  Bard 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  Henry  IV. — possibly  the  most 
wonderful  summing  up  of  the  subject  in  any  language, 
— in  which  he  concludes  that  "uneasy  lies  the  head  that 
wears  a  crown." 

This  same  uneasiness  applies  to  every  head  that  is 
stufTed  with  care,  worries  and  responsibilities.  It  is 
the  crux  of  that  perplexing  problem  that  make  us  re- 
echo the  conclusion  of  the  canny  Scotch  doctor  in 
Macbeth,  "Therein  the  patient  must  minister  to  him- 
self." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  also  that  even  the  well-being 
of  animals  is  subject  to  their  mental  reaction  toward 
sleep.  Domesticated  animals  become  dangerous  when 
their  sleep  is  disturbed.  Cows  fall  off  in  their  yield  of 
milk,  hens  curtail  their  Qgg  output,  and  even  sheep 
and  pigs  refuse  to  fatten. 

The  myriad-minded  Shakespeare  recognized  again 
this  reaction  of  sleep  towards  trustworthy  contentment 
when  he  made  Caesar  say ; 

"Let  me  have  men  about  me  that  arc  fat 
Slcek-licadcd  men,  and  such  as  slcc])  o'  nights, 


THE  FINE  ART  OF  SLEEPING  SOUNDLY        35 

Yond'  Cassius  hath  a  lean  and  hungry  look — 
Such  men  are  dangerous." 

So,  the  mental  condition  has  a  powerful  influence 
upon  the  function  and  the  quality  of  sleep.  This,  in 
turn,  depends  largely  upon  one's  ability  to  put  the  ob- 
jective mind  in  a  quiescent  condition,  and  give  the  job 
of  running  things  over  to  the  care  of  the  subconscious 
mind.  The  "objective  mind,"  it  will  be  remembered,  is 
that  mind  which  takes  note  of  everything  that  happens 
to  us  when  we  are  awake,  getting  all  its  impressions 
through  the  avenues  of  sight,  smell,  hearing,  touch 
and  taste. 

The  subjective  or  subconscious  mind  is  that  mind — 
or  that  part  of  our  mind — in  which  are  pigeon-holed 
all  the  impressions  that  the  objective  mind  gathers  in 
its  busy  experience.    It  is  the  storehouse  of  memory. 

But,  in  addition,  the  subconscious  mind  exercises 
control  over  all  our  "involuntary  activities."  It  gov- 
erns and  regulates  the  beating  of  the  heart,  the  inhala- 
tion and  exhalation  of  air,  the  digestion  and  assimila- 
tion of  food.  All  the  "vegetative  processes"  are  under 
its  control.  The  subconscious  mind  never  sleeps.  It 
is  always  "on  the  job" — day  and  night. 

This  is  the  part  of  our  mind  that  wakes  some  of  us — 
like  an  alarm  clock — on  the  precise  hour  we  had 
planned  to  get  up,  and  that  solves  the  perplexing  prob- 
lem for  us  while  we  sleep. 


36  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

Sometimes  it  even  gets  its  owner  up  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  and  parades  him  all  over  the  neighborhood 
in  his  pajamas ;  or  makes  him  write  books  that  he  would 
never  otherwise  think  of  writing — as  we  shall  see  in 
Chapter  8. 

The  confidence  that  one  will  sleep  soundly  and  wake 
rested  and  refreshed  is  frequently  stimulated  by  the 
influence  of  suggestion  on  the  subjective  mind — just 
as  the  fear  that  we  will  lie  awake  all  night  begets  the 
thing  we  feared. 

Our  Christian  Science  and  mental  healer  friends  have 
put  salt  on  the  tail  of  a  big  idea  in  this  connection. 
So  it's  good  science  and  good  psychology  to  suggest  to 
yourself  just  before  dropping  off  to  sleep  "I  shall  sleep 
soundly  all  night,  and  awake  rested  and  refreshed  in 
the  morning." 

I  have  known  several  instances  in  which  this  auto- 
suggestion worked  beneficial  results  in  people  who 
lacked  nervous  poise,  or  who  suffered  from  some  of 
the  manifold  symptoms  caused  by  an  unstable  or 
irritable  condition  of  the  nervous  system. 

The  improvement  is  almost  immediately  apparent, 
and  it  is  even  more  pronounced  with  repetition  and 
practice. 

The  influence  of  this  suggestion  is  even  more  marked 
if  the  suggestion  be  given  by  another  individual,  while 
the  party  of  the  first  part  is  apparently  sound  asleep. 


THE  FINE  ART  OF  SLEEPING  SOUNDLY       37 

In  this  way,  merely  by  talking  in  a  loud,  but  positive 
tone  of  voice,  mothers  have  cured  their  children  of 
habits  of  inattention  or  disobedience.  They  have  deep- 
ened the  child's  sleep,  broken  up  recurrent  "night 
terrors" — even  cured  bed-wetting. 

In  fact,  the  mother  can  implant  almost  any  sugges- 
tions she  chooses  in  that  tired  sleeping  brain — with  not 
the  slightest  possibility  of  ever  doing  harm — just  as 
could  the  most  learned  and  enthusiastic  nerve  specialist. 
And  there  is  no  expense  attached;  so  mothers  every- 
where can  give  these  suggestions  and  then  pocket  the 
medical  fees  they  would  otherwise  have  to  pay  out  for 
these  hypnoidal  treatments. 

If  sleep  be  broken  frequently  not  only  the  health 
but  also  the  courage — the  morale — of  a  man — or  an 
army  of  men — will  suffer. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  the 
Commander  in  Chief  of  the  Haytian  troops,  broke  up 
the  predatory  ambitions  of  the  first  Napoleon  in  the 
Haytian  struggle  for  independence. 

The  wiley  negro,  considered  by  many  authorities 
equal  to  Hannibal  in  strategy,  with  his  tatterdemalion 
handful  of  troops,  could  not  venture  a  pitched  battle 
with  Napoleon's  veterans.  But  he  could  keep  them 
awake.    And  he  did. 

So  as  soon  as  the  French  troops  got  to  sleep  at  night, 


38  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

Toussaint  made  a  feint  of  attacking  them — getting 
ihem  all  up  and  under  arms. 

Keeping  this  up  night  after  night — and  several  times 
a  night  when  necessary — within  a  few  weeks  Napo- 
leon's army  of  30,000  veteran  troops,  without  a  single 
engagement  in  the  field,  was  reduced  to  less  than  5,000 
effectives.  All  the  others  were  either  dead  or  ill  of 
causes  induced  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  by  lack  of  sleep. 

The  huge  death  rate  of  the  French  army  in  the 
disastrous  retreat  from  Moscow  was  due  to  similar 
harassing  tactics  on  the  part  of  the  Russian  cavalry- 
men. 

In  fact,  Waterloo  itself  was  the  result  of  Napoleon's 
muddy-mindedness  and  depleted  vigor— brought  about 
l)y  lack  of  the  proper  amount  and  the  proper  quality 
of  sleep. 

This  moves  me  to  write  here  something  that  lies 
very  close  to  my  heart — something  respecting  our  own 
dear  boys — and  their  gallant  Allies — fighting  iron  op- 
pression in  those  Hun-ravaged  lands  across  the  sea. 

We  have  been  told  that  "an  army  fights  on  its  belly" 
— meaning  that  a  well-fed  army  is  a  vigorous,  cour- 
ageous army. 

This  is  true  in  one  respect.  But  don't  forget  the 
6-day  bicycle  rider — starving  because  of  lack  of  sleep. 

I  believe,  and  scientific  men  everywhere  are  coming 
to  this  same  conclusion,  that  it  is  almost  as  important, 


THE  FINE  ART  OF  SLEEPING  SOUNDLY       39 

in  maintaining  stamina  and  the  iron  will  to  endure,  that 
an  army  be  well  bedded  as  that  it  be  adequately  fed. 

I  believe  that  were  the  splendid  chaps,  spending  their 
fine  energy  like  dross  on  all  our  fronts,  to  be  taken  into 
billets  as  often  as  was  consistent  with  military  ex- 
igencies, and  given  a  chance  to'  recoup  spent  energy 
in  comfortable,  substantial,  sleep-inspiring  beds — not 
canvas  cots  or  straw  "shake  downs" — it  would  increase 
their  efficiency  at  least  25%.  Which  is  equivalent  to 
putting  an  additional  million  or  more  men  as  reinforce- 
ments to  the  millions  we  already  have  on  the  Allied 
fronts.  Also  it  would  put  a  quality  of  "punch"  and 
"follow  up"  into  their  efforts  when  they  returned  to 
duty  that  would  make  itself  felt — in  a  big  and  im- 
portant military  way. 

For,  in  the  last  analysis,  other  factors  being  rela- 
tively equal,  battles  are  fought,  not  with  bullets,  but 
with  nerves.  The  army  with  the  steadiest,  staunch- 
est,  most  enduring  quality  of  nerve  is  the  army  that 
will  win.  And  as  a  nerve  tonic  there's  nothing  on  earth 
that  ever  has  or  ever  will  equal  a  rest-bringing,  nerve- 
building  bed. 


"IVe  can   be  sure,  however,  that  'Good  night  and  pleasant  dreams'   has  a 

deeper  significance    than    most    of  us   realise.      For   a    sleep   with   pleasant 

dreams  is  beneficial — like  0  pleasant  visit  from  a  friend." 


A  Couch 
^  of  Classic 

'^^   Greece. 


Chapter  VI 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES 


[HAT  we  are  "Such  stuff  as  dreams  are 
made  of,  and  our  little  life  is  rounded  with 
a  sleep"  is  good  poetry.  But  it  isn't  good 
physiology.  For  chemistry  tells  us  just 
what  we  are  made  of.  But  how  dreams  are  made  is 
still  somewhat  speculative. 

Of  one  thing  we  are  quite  certain.  The  sub-con- 
scious mind  is  active  all  the  time — weaving  the  tapestry 
of  intricate  fantasy.  When  we  sleep  lightly  enough 
to  remember  the  pattern  of  this  tapestry  we  may  be 
said  to  dream.  When  we  don't  remember  the  impres- 
sions we  say  we  haven't  dreamed. 

Yet  those  who  watch  even  the  soundest  sleeper  may 
occasionally  see  his  lips  moving  in  some  deep-sleep 
exploration.  Or  catch,  in  the  wrinkling  of  his  brow, 
some  sense  of  that  fitful  gust  of  thought  that  is  blowing 
across   the   fertile  fields   of   his   mind.     Of   this   the 

41 


42  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

dreamer  will  have  no  waking  consciousness.  Yet  we 
know  he  has  been  dreaming.  And  under  hypnotic 
influence  he  can  frequently  be  made  to  remember  the 
substance  of  his  dream. 

Also,  the  researches  of  such  men  as  Sigmund  Freud, 
Pierre  Janet,  Morton  Prince  and  Havelock  Ellis  have 
opened  new  vistas  to  us  in  this  wonderful  world  of 
dreams.  These  men  have  shown  us  that  there  is  a 
certain  order  and  reason  in  dreams,  and  that,  if  we 
analyze  them  closely,  they  have  a  curious  foundation 
of  stability.  They  are,  in  part,  the  imaginary  fulfil- 
ment of  desires  and  wishes  that  lurk  deep  in  the  soul. 

Indeed,  the  interpretation  of  dreams  by  psychoanaly- 
sis,— or  soulanalysis,  as  it  is  called, — has  developed 
an  entirely  new  method  of  explaining  dreams  and  of 
elucidating  causes  for  many  obscure  nervous  condi- 
tions. And,  what  is  more,  it  has  enabled  modern  nerve 
specialists  to  cure  many  hitherto  incurable  nervous  and 
mental  conditions.  By  finding  out,  through  interpret- 
ing the  symbolism  of  dreams,  the  thing  that  caused 
them,  and  by  explaining  or  suggesting  these  things 
away — they  have  removed  at  one  fell  swoop,  the 
dreams,  the  cause  of  the  dreams,  and  the  organic  or 
mental  effects  of  the  dreams. 

Superficially  considered,  the  dream  world  is  a  topsy- 
turvy world,  in  which  gods  and  griffons,  gargoyles  and 
genii    perambulate    cheek    by    jowl.      It's    "Alice    in 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES 43 

Wonderland"  mixed  with  Plato's  "Dialogues" — the 
Brussels  sprouts  we  had  for  dinner  crossed  with  a 
strain  of  Liberty  Loan  rally. 

And  yet,  in  all  this  apparent  nonsense,  there  is  a 
structure  of  logic — not,  of  course,  according  to  the 
translation  of  the  Gypsy  dream-book,  or  some  other 
hocus-pocus  of  credulous  lore — but  according  to  scien- 
tific interpretation. 

Take,  for  example,  a  bizarre  dream  narrated  by  H. 
Addington  Bruce,  in  one  of  his  interesting  works  on 
psychology.  At  least  20  times  during  a  period  of  six 
months,  Bruce  dreamed  that  a  cat  was  clawing  at  his 
throat.  The  fury  of  the  feline's  attack  was  so  great 
that  it  invariably  awakened  the  sleeper. 

Finally,  one  day,  the  accident  of  a  heavy  cold, 
settling  in  his  throat,  sent  Bruce  to  a  specialist.  Ex- 
amination there  disclosed  the  presence  of  a  growth 
requiring  immediate  operation.  After  the  removal  of 
the  growth  Bruce  was  never  again  visited  by  his  noc- 
turnal feline  marauder. 

He  had  suffered  no  pain,  not  even  inconvenience, 
from  the  growth  in  his  throat.  He  was  never  con- 
sciously aware  of  its  presence.  But  unquestionably  it 
had  given  rise  to  sensations,  slight  though  they  were, 
which  had  made  sufficient  impression  upon  his  sleeping 
consciousness  to  start  it  into  activity. 

This  activity  took  the  form  of  the  recurring  cat- 


44  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

clawing  dream — a  quite  sensible  device  on  the  part  of 
Dr.  Bruce's  sub-conscious  mind  for  getting  its  message 
across. 

In  this  same  way  it  has  been  proved  that  certain 
maladies  of  a  slowly  progressive  nature — tuberculosis, 
cancer,  some  forms  of  heart  disease,  or  ulcer  of  the 
stomach — have  disclosed  their  presence  in  some  sym- 
bolical dream — such  as  dreams  of  oppression  and 
smothering  (although  usually  these  have  a  very  com- 
mon and  easily  correctible  source,  as  we  shall  see  in 
Chapter  7),  climbing  up  interminable  flights  of  stairs, 
mice  gnawing  at  the  abdomen,  and  other  disquieting 
mental  visitations. 

So,  I'f  you  are  one  of  those  who  have  the  same  dis- 
quieting dream,  over  and  over  again,  always  referable 
to  some  particular  part  of  the  body,  it  might  be  worth 
while  to  drop  in  and  have  a  good  doctor  look  you  over 
sometime.  If  there  is  something  developing  that  your 
soul  is  trying  to  tell  you  about  in  a  dream,  you'll  know 
it  in  ample  time  to  cure  it — or  to  cut  it  out.  If  there 
isn't  there  is  no  harm  done,  and  you  will  have  been 
"playing  safe"  on  the  proposition  anyhow. 

Dr.  Coriat  and  Dr.  Boris  Sidis,  of  Boston,  Dr.  Brill, 
of  New  York  and  other  pupils  of  Prof.  Freud,  have 
detailed  numbers  of  instances  in  which  the  "dissection" 
of  dreams  and  the  interpretation  of  their  symbolism 
has  been  instrumental  in  restoring  to  health  hitherto 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES 45 

incurable  cases  of  nervous  disease  and  hysteria — some 
of  them  bordering  almost  upon  mania. 

The  method  of  "tapping  the  sub-conscious,"  or 
dragging  these  ingrowing  memories  to  the  surface,  is 
most  interesting.  It  consists  in  piecing  together  the  data 
of  dreams  or  the  almost-forgotten  impressions  that  flit 
through  the  mind  while  the  patient  is  in  a  thoroughly 
relaxed  condition,  and  then  tracing  them  to  some 
central  incident  of  origin. 

This  will  usually  be  found  to  be  some  emotional  dis- 
turbance of  a  distressing  character — or  some  impulse 
or  desire  which  was,  or  is,  continually  repressed,  or 
inhibited,  but  which  persists  in  bobbing  up  most 
obstreperously  during  the  sub-conscious  state. 

Sometimes  the  central  impression  is  only  related  by 
"free  association"  with  the  real  thing— a  part  of  the 
skein  of  thought  which  must  be  untangled  to  get  at 
the  nub  of  the  matter. 

The  most  satisfactory  feature  of  the  practice  of 
psychoanalysis  is  that,  the  source  of  the  trouble  once 
disclosed,  the  trouble  itself  vanishes  into  thin  air — 
like  the  hobgoblin  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  which, 
on  investigation,  we  find  is  only  a  coat  hung  over  the 
back  of  a  chair. 

A  characteristic  case  of  this  nature  is  reported  by 
Dr.  Brill.  The  patient  was  an  Austrian  woman,  who 
had  had  periodical  attacks  of  nervousness,  depression, 


46 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

anxiety,  and  insomnia.     These  attacks  came  on  about 
once  a  year,  and  usually  lasted  two  or  three  months. 

Several  eminent  speciaHsts  had  pronounced  this  pa- 
tient insane.  Dr.  Brill,  however,  was  convinced  that 
this  was  a  case  of  mental  repression, — probably  of 
sexual  origin — a  typical  case  for  psychoanalysis — and 
urged  this  patient  to  tell  him  about  her  dreams. 

After  some  minutes  she  recalled  a  dream.  It  was 
about  a  runaway  horse,  which  bit  her  on  the  hand 
when  she  put  up  her  arm  to  save  herself  from  being 
knocked  down  by  the  vicious  animal. 

Tested  by  Dr.  Freud's  method  of  "free  association" 
it  was  a  most  illuminating  dream.  For,  asked  to  re- 
member what  occurred  to  her  in  connection  with  this 
horse,  she  said  it  suggested  to  her  the  government- 
breeding  station  near  which  she  used  to  live  in  Austria. 

Other  associations  followed,  all  suggested  by  her  life 
in  Austria.  Finally,  one  idea  connecting  with  another, 
she  was  suddenly  reminded  of  a  fright  she  received 
from  a  mouse  which  ran  under  her  bed  a  few  nights 
before  she  started  for  America. 

This,  in  turn,  brought  up  the  fact  that  she  had 
made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  sell  a  number  of 
feather  beds  which  she  very  wisely  had  decided  not  to 
take  with  her. 

"I  also  remember" — she  went  on,  then  hesitated, 
blushed  and  went  silent. 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES  47 

"Please  go  on,"  said  Dr.  Brill. 

"But  what's  the  use?  This  is  all  nonsense — leading 
nowhere." 

Dr.  Brill  was  insistent,  however. 

Finally,  with  great  emotion  and  much  embarrass- 
ment, the  patient  told  the  physician  of  a  long- forgotten 
memory  of  a  man  who  had  come  to  bargain  with  her 
for  the  feather  beds. 

She  described  him  as  an  impudent  and  insulting  indi- 
vidual, and — after  much  urging — confessed  that  he 
had  attempted  to  attack  her — but  was  driven  away  by 
her  screams  for  help. 

The  significant  thing  about  the  case,  however,  is 
that,  once  having  gotten  this  matter  "out  of  her  sys 
tem"  she  had  exorcised  the  evil  spirit  of  repressed  fear 
which  was  causing  her  all  her  nervous  troubles — for 
never  again  was  she  visited  by  her  spells  of  depression, 
nervousness,  anxiety  and  insomnia. 

And  so,  in  this  way,  dream  analysis — in  the  scientific, 
not  the  old  woman's  way — may  prove  of  great  help 
in  clearing  up  and  removing  the  results  of  emotional 
shock — especially  the  emotional  shocks  of  early  child- 
hood. 

The  facts  disclosed  by  these  studies  should  impress 
parents  with  the  importance  of  safeguarding  their  chil- 
dren from  fright  and  from  all  mental  influences  which 


48  SLEEPING  FOR  EIEALTH 

tend  to  shock  the  mind  during  the  impressionable  years 
of  youth. 

Perhaps  the  chief  drawbacks  attached  to  this  practice 
of  soulanalysis  by  physicians  are,  first,  that  they  tend 
to  make  a  nervous,  hysterical  patient  too  introspective 
— too  intent  on  seeing  "what  makes  the  wheels  go 
'round." 

The  patient  is  sometimes  likely  to  magnify  his  own 
impressions  and  to  place  undue  emphasis  on  something 
that  may  be  unimportant  or  merely  incidental. 

And,  next,  it  tends  to  make  a  physician  careless  in 
seeking  out  organic  or  functional  causes  for  nervous 
disturbances,  which,  if  removed,  would  remove  the  dis- 
turbances themselves. 

That  there  are  also  certain  marvelous  faculties  of 
the  mind  exhibited  during  dreams  is  now  admitted  by 
most  of  the  world's  leading  scientists.  Of  such  a  char- 
acter are  the  interesting  cases  described  in  Chapter  9. 

In  this  connection  will  be  recalled  also  the  dream 
exploits  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  obtained 
through  dreams  the  plots  for  some  of  his  most  wonder- 
ful stories — including  that  fantastic  and  hair-raising 
tale,  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde." 

The  weird  and  beautiful  "Kubla  Khan,"  of  Cole- 
ridge, in  which  the  woman  wailed  so  blood-curdlingly 
for  her  demon  lover,  is  also  the  product  of  a  dream. 
And  everyone  remembers  the  bargain  which  Tartini 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES  49 

drove  with  the  devil  for  the  sale  of  his  soul,  and  how 
old  Tartini  got  up  and  wrote  out  the  "Devil's  Sonata" 
after  the  genial  Beelzebub  had  played  it  for  him  on 
his  fiddle — in  a  dream. 

Then  there  is  Prof.  Hilprecht's  dream  solution  of 
a  most  puzzling  problem  in  archeology,  Cuvier's  re- 
storation of  a  fossil  specimen,  and  thousands  of  in- 
stances in  which  the  hiding  place  of  lost  articles  has 
been  disclosed  in  a  dream. 

The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  has  authenti- 
cated hundreds  of  cases  in  which  dreaming  girls  have 
seen  their  future  husbands — husbands  whom  they 
never  yet  had  laid  bodily  eyes  upon,  and  of  dreamers 
who  foretold  the  day  and  the  hour  of  their  death,  who 
saw  events  that  were  transpiring  in  distant  countries, 
as  did  the  marvelous  Swedenborg,  most  wonderful  of 
all  dreamers. 

So  universal  are  these  fascinating  and  mysterious 
experiences  that  perhaps  there  is  hardly  a  family  to 
whom  has  not  come  some  most  peculiar  and  unusual 
manifestation — first  outlined  in  the  dream  of  some  of 
its  members. 

I  remember  that  my  own  mother  has  accurately  fore- 
told at  least  two  deaths  of  relatives  living  at  a  great 
distance.  In  one  instance  the  letter  announcing  the 
death  of  her  father  in  Ireland  was  not  received  until 
two  weeks  after  she  had  been  told  by  her  sleeping 


50 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

mind  (or  perhaps  her  father  himself  told  her  sleep- 
ing mind)  of  his  passing  over. 

Another  relative  invariably  foretold  every  misfor- 
tune and  every  business  reverse  by  a  dream  of  negroes. 
He  never  could  say  just  what  form  the  reverse  would 
take — and  so  was  not  able  to  guard  against  it.  But 
he  could  safely  wage  that  every  time  he  had  a  dream 
in  which  a  negro  figured',  he  was  "in  for  it" — somehow 
or  other. 

There  are  too  many  hundred  thousands  of  these 
human  experiences  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and 
throughout  all  the  pages  of  history,  to  warrant  their 
dismissal  as  mere  coincidences.  But  their  considera- 
tion takes  us  far  into  the  realms  of  psychic  research. 
And  this  is  not  within  the  scope  of  our  present  study 
into  the  functions  of  sleep. 

We  can  be  sure,  however,  that  "Good  night  and 
pleasant  dreams"  has  a  deeper  significance  than  most 
of  us  realize.  For  a  sleep  with  pleasant  dreams  is 
beneficial — like  a  pleasant  visit  from  a  friend. 

We  know  that  if  the  emotions  are  pleasantly  stimu- 
lated by  dreams  the  digestion  and  assimilation  of  food 
proceeds  more  favorably.  All  the  vegetative  processes 
are  carried  on  more  harmoniously.  Pleasant  dreams 
create  a  feeling  of  restfulness  and  well-being  that  re- 
sult in  an  improved  state  of  mind  and  body. 

Bad  dreams  and  nightmares  produce  exactly  the  op- 


DREAMS  AND  THEIR  CAUSES 51 

posite  result.  They  serve  to  retard  the  digestion  and 
absorption  of  food  products,  and  inhibit  the  normal 
activities  of  the  vegetative  functions.  They  leave  the 
brain  depressed  and  irritable.  They  throw  a  wet 
blanket  over  the  wholesome  and  happy  emotions  that 
should  leave  the  sleeper  with  fresh  vigor  and  an  eager- 
ness for  the  day's  work. 

So  anything  and  everything  that  conduces  either  to 
dreamlessness  or  to  pleasant  dreams  makes  for  health 
and  physical  resiliency.  And  everything  that  disturbs 
sleep  or  that  causes  unpleasant  dreams  lowers  our 
vitality,  depletes  our  store  of  vital  energy,  and  tends 
to  make  our  miserable  lives  shorter  and  decidedly  more 
miserable. 


Chapter  VII 

THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES 
IN  THE  NIGHT 

^^'^^^  HE  wisest  man  that  ever  lived  once  said, 
\^J^  "He  jests  at  scars  who  never  felt  a 
wound."  In  similar  fashion  we  make 
light  of  the  terror  that  comes  in  the  dark 
to  those  more  delicately  organized  and  more  suscep- 
tible to  external  and  internal  impression  than  we  are. 
And  yet  perhaps  we  ourselves  may  be  entitled  to 
little  or  no  credit  for  our  freedom  from  nightmares 
and  frights,  or  for  our  fearlessness  in  the  creaky, 
whispering  dark. 

The  credit,  if  due  at  all,  should  go  in  large  measure 
to  certain  steady-nerved,  strong-willed  ancestors,  who 
bequeathed  us  a  nervous  system  and  a  set  of  racial 
memories  that  fortify  us  against  fright,  under  condi- 
tions where  others  might  melt  with  terror. 

Indeed,  it  is  now  conceded  that  the  most  serious 
and  stubborn  affections  that  nerve  specialists  are  called 
upon  to  treat  are  those  caused  by  the  fears  and  frights 
of  ancestors.  Not  immediate  ancestors,  although  these 
are  responsible  in  various  ways  for  considerable  of  our 
nervous  instability,  but  of  our  monkey-like  progeni- 


THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES  IN  THE  NIGHT    53 


tors — our  great-grandfathers,  ten  thousand  times  re- 
moved— back  in  the  flying-Hzard,  giant-fern  period. 

This  may  seem  difficult  to  believe.  But  scientists  who 
have  devoted  a  lifetime  to  the  study  now  conclude 
that  much  unexplained  nervous  apprehension,  and 
many  intuitive  and  instinctive  fears  are  inherited  from 
our  forebears  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  biologic  cell-stuff,  or  the  soul-stuff,  whichever 
it  is,  that  they  pass  down  to  us,  contains  the  essence 
of  that  thing,  or  that  state  of  mind,  that  makes  chil- 
dren  and  many  adults  fear  the  dark,  or  high  places, 
or  snakes,  or  mice,  or  running  water,  or  thunder- 
storms, or  being  left  alone,  or  mysterious  forests, 
or  of  being  tied  up,  or  of  strangers,  or  fire,  or  of  a 
hundred  other  things  equally  absurd  in  this  '' 

protected  age. 

And  these  instinctive   fears   are  by 
no   means    "imaginary,"   or   so   many 
rugged-minded  men  and  Avomen 
would  have  us  believe.    On  the 
contrary,  they  are  as  tangible  and 
definite  as  is  a  case  of  mumps  or 
a  broken  leg — and  they  cause  in-     :,-^;. 
finitely  more  suffering  than  either. 

Take  the  fear  of  darkness,  for 
example.  Out  of  the  blackness  of 
a  prehistoric  night  there  creeps  a 


54  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

great  jungle  monster.  With  a  roar  that  freezes  the 
blood  he  springs  among  the  sleeping  clan,  breaks  the 
back  of  the  nearest  with  a  blow,  crunches  the  body  in 
his  great  jaws,  and  snarlingly  drags  it  into  the  forest. 

There,  for  hours,  the  terror-stricken  folk,  who  have 
sought  temporary  shelter  in  the  branches  of  the  trees, 
shudder  to  the  carnivore's  bloody  feast. 

The  nervous  systems  of  these  ape-like  ancestors 
were  shocked  with  an  indelibly  implanted  horror  of 
the  dark  and  its  dangers.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the 
survivors  of  these  nightly  catastrophes  transmitted  to 
their  children,  as  part  of  the  inheritance  of  the  race, 
the  instinct  to  dread  darkness,  and  to  fear  the  mys- 
terious shadowy  recesses  of  the  forest,  where  sudden 
death  lurked  in  the  undergrowth  ? 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  the  deep  caves  that  might 
harbor  ferocious  bears,  or  the  black  gorges  and  clefts 
that  were  likely  to  conceal  the  saber-toothed  tiger, 
struck  the  folk  over  the  heart  and  caused'  the  thick 
reddish-brown  hair  of  their  heads  to  stand  on  end  ? 

Now,  children  are  nearer  their  ancestors  than  we 
are.  Reason,  experience,  the  shame  of  acknowledging 
"groundless"  terrors,  and  the  courage  that  comes  from 
meeting  and  overcoming  obstacles  are  not  yet  theirs. 

And  so  they  see  bears  on  the  black  stairs,  leering 
faces  peering  from  shadowy  corners,  and  shapes  of 
dread  in   familiar  daytime  objects.     The  thing  that 


THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES  IN  THE  NIGHT    55 

might  be  under  the  bed,  or  in  the  cellar,  or  in  the 
murky  attic  closet,  waiting  to  spring  out  upon  them, 
is  to  them  as  real  as  is  George  Washington  or  the 
Desert  of  Sahara  to  us. 

And  they  can  no  more  help  being  afraid  of  this  old 
racial  memory  than  we  can  help  fearing  death  or  the 
tax-gatherer,  or  getting  run  over. 

Practically  every  child  in  the  world  dreads  the  dark. 
Even  the  best-born,  the  healthiest,  and  the  most  care- 
fully shielded  are  liable  to  sudden  stampedes  of  fear 
following  some  suggestion  that  overwhelms  control, 
and  that  may  actually  cause  deep-seated  or  even  per- 
manent nervous  disorder. 

This  fear  of  darkness  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
children.  Many  adults  have  it  to  an  extraordinary 
degree.  If  you  don't  believe  this,  just  have  yourself 
locked  in  to  the  blackness  of  a  solitary  confinement 
cell  for  a  half  hour  or  so,  as  I  did  on  the  old  Australian 
prison  ship  that  toured  these  shores  a  few  years  ago. 

I  confess,  without  shame,  that  I  had  to  keep  telling 
myself  that  my  friends  would  let  me  out  of  this  tomb 
when  they  got  ready. 

Otherwise  I  should  have  yielded  to  an  almost  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  kick  on  that  door  and  to  shriek  at 
the  top  of  my  lungs.  Which,  so  I  was  afterwards  in- 
formed, is  exactly  the  way  that  nine  out  of  ten  behave 
under  these  circumstances.     The  fear  of  "closeness" 


56 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

complicates  the  fear  of  darkness  in  this  instance  and 
intensifies  the  dread.  Our  soul-stuff  knows  that  close- 
ness is  dangerous,  and  that  to  be  suddenly  confronted 
in  a  narrow  place  with  some  peril  which  there  isn't 
room  to  avoid  or  opportunity  to  run  away  from,  spells 
disaster. 

This  knowledge  our  half -animal  forefathers  have 
transmitted  through  all  the  ages  that  separate  them 
from  us. 

So,  tangled  in  the  woof  of  inherited  instinct  are 
those  racial  dreads,  that  only  time  and  education  and 
the  strong  force  of  example  can  obliterate — or  more 
properly  subjugate — for  they  are,  in  my  judgment, 
never  obliterated. 

Almost  as  unreasoning  as  the  dread  of  darkness  is 
the  horror  of  high  places.  The  average  person  who 
has  not  become  immured  to  it  by  experience  could  not 
be  hired  for  love  or  money  to  walk  a  girder  on  the 
twentieth  story,  or  to  balance  himself  on  the  coping 
of  even  a  moderately  high  building. 

Some  there  are  who  cannot  look  down  a  deep  well 
or  a  subway  excavation.  Others  suffer  terribly  when 
they  have  to  go  up  in  elevators,  or  when  they  cross 
high  bridges  or  ravines. 

Some  cannot  even  watch  a  steeple- jack  at  work,  or 
see  some  reckless  but  debonnaire  artisan  sliding  gayly 
down  a  sky-scraping   rope,   without   getting   seasick. 


THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES  IN  THE  NIGHT    57 

Others  are  frightened,  not  so  much  by  the  height  itself 
as  by  an  almost  irresistable  desire  to  jump  off  when 
they  are  up  there. 

Of  course  the  slight  changes  in  blood  pressure  which 
come  with  the  rise  above  the  sea  level,  the  feeling  of 
insecurity,  the  "newness"  of  the  situation,  and  the 
rioting  imagination  bodying  forth  the  consequences  of 
a  "spill,"  all  have  their  effects  upon  the  body  and  upon 
the  mind. 

But  back  of  all  these  things  is  that  instinctive 
"gravity  fear,"  transmitted  to  us  by  ancestors  who 
didn't  fall,  but  who  saw  clearly  what  happened  to 
others  who  did. 

And  so,  even  the  tiniest  infants,  too  young  to  know 
danger,  or  to  have  developed  any  imagination,  are 
sometimes  "frightened  stiff"  at  being  lifted  toward 
the  ceiling  or  in  dropping  to  the  lower  floor  in  an  ele- 
vator. 

Then  there  is  the  fear  of  snakes  and  of  crawling 
things  that  possesses  ninety-nine  out  of  every  one  hun- 
dred of  us.  What  is  there  about  a  harmless  little 
garter  snake  or  a  green  lizard  that  should  create  a 
panic  in  women  and  a  murder-lust  in  men  ? 

There  is  this  about  it :  In  the  tropical  regions  that 
were  the  first  home  of  the  race,  snakes  were  almost 
uniformly  venomous.    Our  geologic  ancestors  came  to 


58  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

know  that  death  sprang  upon  them  from  the  fangs  of 
serpents. 

Thus  they  came  to  dread  snakes  and  all  creeping 
and  crawling  things  that  suggested  snakes.  And  so 
they  implanted  the  fear  of  crawling  things  in  all  their 
children — even  unto  the  ten-thousandth  generation. 

Now  we  see  why  nightmares  are  so  very  real — to 
the  one  who  is  ridden  by  them.  And  why  they  so 
frequently  hark  back  to  the  horrors  that  infest  the 
dark,  to  being  smothered  by  closeness,  to  falling  from 
tremendous  heights,  to  snakes  and  all  manner  of  wall- 
eyed crawling  things,  and  to  various  other  matters  in 
which  the  individual  himself  may  have  no  experience, 
but  with  which  his  soul  is  thoroughly  well  acquainted. 

Our  objective  or  reasoning  mind,  being  asleep,  the 
subconscious  mind  takes  the  reins  and  jumps  the  sleeper 
over  the  hurdles  of  horrible  experiences. 

Not  content  with  plaguing  us  with  the  frights  and 
fears  of  ancestral  memories,  it  even  manufactures  new 
ones,  made  up  of  a  most  curious  and  heterogeneous 
hodge-podge  of  everything  we  have  heard,  smelled, 
seen,  tasted,  touched  or  talked  about — generally  mixed 
with  some  physical  sensation  that  touches  the  thing  ofif. 

For  instance,  the  slipping  down  of  the  blankets  may 
start  an  Arctic  exploration  expedition  with  a  whole 
train  of  icebergs,  seals,  walruses,  Eskimos,  and  every- 
thing that  properly  belongs  to  our  conception  of  what 


THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES  IN  THE  NIGHT    59 

Peary  or  Nansen  must  have  come  through  in  order  to 
get  somewhere  near  the  pole.  Or  even  such  a  trivial 
accident  as  our  poking  a  couple  of  toes  from  under  the 
covers  on  a  cold  night  may  produce  a  dreadfully  em- 
barrassing dream,  in  which  we  try  to  slip  unobserved 
through  the  crowd  on  the  corner  of  42nd  Street  and 
Fifth  Avenue,  dressed  in  a  costume  that  would  make 
decollete  look  like  being  wrapped  in  feather  beds. 

Read  Mercutio's  beautiful  and  fantastic  description 
of  how  dreams  are  started  and  how  those  so  stimulated 
interpret  this  stimulus  and  react  to  it.  For  it's  true — 
all  but  the  fairies.  And,  since  Peter  Pan,  I'm  not  so 
sure  that  they  are  not  true,  too. 

Perhaps  every  one  is  familiar  with  the  distressing 
dreams  produced  by  some  dietetic  indiscretion — the 
"mince  pie"  or  "midnight  lobster"  dream. 

It  surely  is  a  realistic  and  thrilling  experience,  while 
it  lasts,  like  the  drunkard's  eulogy  of  delirium  tremens : 
"You  ain't  been  nowhere,  and  you  ain't  seen  nuthin', 
'till  you've  had  the  'shakes.'  " 

Yet  that  little  old  man  with  the  hideous  fanged 
mouth,  who  hopped  up  on  your  chest  and  proceeded  to 
grow  bigger  and  bigger  and  heavier  and  heavier,  until 
finally,  by  a  superhuman  effort,  you  succeeded  in  un- 
horsing him,  was  only  gas. 

The  gas-distended  stomach  was  pushing  away  for 
dear  life  on  the  diaphragm,  compressing  the  lungs  with 


60 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

all  the  strength  of  fermentative  desperation.  The 
fertile  imagination  furnished  the  remainder  of  the 
entertainment. 

The  night  terrors  of  children  frequently  have  a 
physical  cause  also.  They  may  originate  in  "mouth- 
breathing"  and  in  the  defects  of  circulation  which  this 
brings  about. 

Some  nasal  obstruction,  such  as  a  twisted  septum 
(the  cartilagenous  division  of  the  nose),  enlarged  tur- 
binated bones,  or  adenoid  growths  may  block  the  nasal 
passages. 

Every  mother  should  closely  observe  her  children 
for  symptoms  of  these  conditions.  If  found,  they 
should  be  removed.  For  if  they  are  not  removed  the 
child  will  develop  contracted  dental  arches  and  other 
conditions  that  will  prevent  the  circulation  of  lymph. 
Deprived  of  this  nutritive  material,  the  brain  will  be 
starved)  into  sub-normality,  and  a  child  who  should  be 
keen  and  alert  becomes  a  dunce. 

If  your  child  cries  out  in  his  sleep,  or  is  subject  to 
distressing  restless  dreams,  see  if  these  nasal  condi- 
tions may  not  be  a  cause.  If  present,  have  them  rad- 
ically removed.  The  dangers  of  operation  are  ex- 
tremely remote,  while  the  dangers  of  not  operating 
are  immediate  and  progressive.  And  the  little  "tads" 
rarely  outgrow  them. 

The  "falling  from  a  height"  dream  also  has  a  phys- 


THE  TERROR  THAT  COMES  IN  THE  NIGHT    61 

ical  basis  of  cause — when  it  occurs  within  the  first  45 
seconds  of  sleep.  For  scientists  have  shown  that  this 
form  of  "falHng  nightmare"  invariably  occurs  during 
the  first  45  seconds  after  falling  asleep. 

It  is  suggested  by  the  general  muscular  relaxation 
that  takes  place  when  we  settle  down  to  sleep.  A 
change  in  position  of  even  the  fraction  of  an  inch,  or 
the  least  little  slip  of  the  muscles,  or  any  sudden  noise 
that  might  suggest  slipping  or  falling,  is  sufficient  to 
convey  the  idea  of  a  fall  to  the  brain. 

In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the  brain  has  provided 
precipices,  chasms,  mast-heads,  monuments,  and  divers 
other  things  for  us  to  fall  or  be  pushed  from — and 
we  "do  the  rest." 

The  inherited  instincts  of  fear  and  the  tendency  of 
the  mind  to  translate  any  unusual  sound  or  motion 
into  terms  of  danger  suggests  what  is  probably  one 
of  the  most  frequent  of  all  causes  of  night  terrors. 

This  is  a  creaky  bed' — a  bed  that  rattles,  squeaks, 
moans,  groans  or  protests — audibly,  or  by  sagging,  or 
by  any  other  unusual  motion,  when  a  sleeper  happens 
to  move  or  turn  in  his  sleep. 

The  very  faintest  sound  or  the  slightest  motion  is 
heard  or  felt  by  the  subconscious  mind.  Like  a  flash 
it  manufactures  its  dream  to  fit  this  particular  soul- 
shock  ;  and  it  repeats  the  process,  possibly  hundreds  of 


62  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

times  a  night,  in  response  to  every  unusual  move  or 
sound. 

This,  I  am  convinced,  is  one  frequent  cause  for 
nightmare,  as  well  as  for  light  disturbed  sleep,  and 
even  for  insomnia. 

Therefore,  a  rigid,  absolutely  noiseless  bed — one  that 
doesn't  wobble,  rattle,  creak  or  sag — will,  in  my 
opinion,  do  more  to  banish  nightmare  than  a  whole 
pocket  full  of  pills.  And  it  won't  be  nearly  so  hard 
on  the  one  who  has  to  take  it,  either. 


Chapter  VIII 
SLEEP-WALKING  AND  SLEEP-WORKING 

!HE  impossible  is  the  thing  we  don't  beHeve; 
the  incredible,  the  thing  we  have  not  yet 
seen.  Both  are  states  of  mind  common  to 
the  average  human.  That  is  why  any  ac- 
count dealing  with  activities  of  the  subliminal  mind 
(that  mind  that  works  while  w^e  sleep,  and  at  all  other 
times)  must  always  be  bolstered  up  with  a  lot  of  affi- 
davits and  attestations,  if  it  is  to  carry  conviction. 
That  is  why  the  phenomena  of  unconscious  cerebral 
and  bodily  activity  have  been  considered,  even  by  scien- 
tists, as  old  wives'  tales,  hardly  worthy  of  serious 
investigation. 

And  yet,  among  medical  reports  of  abnormal  mental 
conditions,  and  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Physical 
Research  Society,  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  well- 
authenticated  cases  of  most  extraordinary  activities  of 

63 


64  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

sleeping  persons  have  been  recorded.  In  some  in- 
stances the  mental  feats  accomplished  far  transcended 
the  normal  capabilities  of  the  individual. 

Such  a  case  is  the  intuition — or  perhaps  it  was  the 
clear  subconscious  grasp  of  business  detail — of  a  Rus- 
sian banker  who  was  addicted  to  the  habit  of  getting 
up  at  night  and  looking  over  his  papers  while  asleep. 
The  banker  had  been  examining  the  prospectus  of  an 
oil  company  about  to  be  formed,  in  which  he  had 
planned  to  buy  an  interest.  But  after  mature  delibera- 
tion, with  his  objective  mind  (the  mind  we  use  while 
awake)  he  decided  not  to  "take  a  chance." 

However,  a  few  days  later,  his  agents  told  him  they 
had  followed  his  instructions,  and  had  bought  heavily 
for  his  account  in  the  proposition,  at  the  same  time 
showing  him  a  letter  written  in  his  handwriting, 
authorizing  this  purchase — a  letter  he  had  written  while 
somnambulistic,  and  of  which  he  had  not  the  slightest 
conscious  recollection.  Within  two  years  the  banker 
had  added  two  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars  to  his 
already  over-swollen  account — which  puts  him  in  the 
championship  class  of  sleep-walking  money-makers. 

But  while  one  person  does  something  constructive 
during  a  somnambulistic  attack,  a  dozen  do  some  ab- 
solutely destructive  or  absurdly  foolish  thing.  Such, 
for  instance,  is  the  case  of  the  English  nobleman  who, 
missing  his  shirts  almost  at  the  rate  of  one  a  night, 


SLEEP-WALKING  AND  SLEEP-WORKING        65 

accused  his  valet  of  purloining  these  indispensable 
articles.  Fortunately  for  all  concerned,  the  erratic 
nobleman  was  seen  the  very  next  night  stealing  out 
in  his  pajamas,  with  his  dress  shirt  under  his  arm. 

Proceeding  cautiously  around  to  the  back  of  the 
barn,  he  secured  a  spade  which  he  had  concealed  in 
the  shrubbery,  dug  a  shallow  grave,  and  buried  his 
shirt,  expeditiously  and  effectively.  Investigation 
showed  that  all  the  remaining  shirts  had  been  interred 
in  the  same  way. 

Most  actions  of  somnambules  are  of  this  general 
character — either  inconsequential,  destructive,  or  else 
utterly  without  sense  or  reason.  Dr.  John  D.  Ouack- 
enbos,  of  New  York,  a  psychologist  of  international 
reputation,  tells  me  of  such  an  instance. 

A  young  woman,  well-known  as  a  successful  writer 
of  short  stories,  was  taking  treatments  by  hypnotic 
suggestion,  which  materially  increased  her  powers  of 
concentration  and  quickened  her  imaginative  faculties. 
Through  an  oversight  on  the  part  of  one  of  the  nurses 
she  was  permitted  to  leave  for  home  while  in  a  som- 
nambulistic condition  induced  by  hypnotic  suggestion. 

When  she  "came  to"  at  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning, 
she  found  that  a  valuable  diamond  ring  was  missing. 
Calling  on  the  doctor,  she  made  known  her  loss,  add- 
ing that  she  had  a  strong  impression  that  she  had  given 
her  much  valued  ring  to  a  beggar. 


66  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

Dr.  Ouackenbos  immediately  "put  her  down  deep" 
in  the  hypnotic  condition,  and  gave  her  strong  sugges- 
tions to  the  effect  that  when  she  returned  to  her  home 
she  would  remember  where  she  had  hidden  her  ring. 

Within  an  hour  she  called  up,  exclaiming  delightedly 
"Doctor,  I've  found  my  ring  in  the  lining  of  an  old 
muff — a  muff  I  was  going  to  give  away  to-day." 

Dr.  Quackenbos  himself  is  a  rare  and  remarkable 
example  of  constructive  somnambulistic  activities,  for 
most  of  his  rather  voluminous  writing  is  done  while 
he  is  objectively  sound  asleep. 

It  is  his  practice  to  arm  himself  with  pad  and  pencil 
on  retiring.  On  awakening  in  the  morning  he  will 
frequently  find  that,  absolutely  unknown  to  himself — 
using  "himself"  in  the  objective  sense — he  will  have 
covered  sheet  after  sheet  of  paper  with  a  perfectly 
coherent  essay,  or  with  some  consecutive  addition  to 
literary  work  he  may  have  had  under  way. 

In  such  manner  was  written  his  fascinating  study — 
"Body  and  Spirit" — and  in  just  such  fashion  is  he 
now  at  "work"  upon  a  new  novel. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  interesting  and  helpful 
to  know  that  Dr.  Quackenbos  believes  that  anyone, 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  cultivate  the  faculty,  can 
develop  a  psychic  mental  stream  which  will  inevitably 
sweep  ideas,  impressions,  and  memorizations  into  ob- 
jective consciousness.     There  they  may  be  utilized  in 


SLEEP-JVALKIXG  AXD  SLEEP-WORKIXG        67 

solving  business  problems,  and  in  assisting  in  the  con- 
ception, construction,  and  completion  of  all  work  of 
a  creative  nature. 

Dr.  Quackenbos  advises — and  I  myself  have  found 
this  extremely  helpful  in  literary  work — that  one 
should  comfortably  compose  himself  and  go  to  sleep 
for  an  hour  or  more  with  the  business  problem,  the 
story  germ,  or  what  not,  firmly  fixed  in  mind.  When 
the  objective  mind  relinquishes  the  burden  of  thought 
— in  other  words,  when  the  subject  goes  to  sleep — the 
subconscious  mind  takes  the  matter  up  and  carries  it 
forward,  together  with  the  memory  impressions  of  the 
subject. 

As  a  result,  it  is  contended  that  an  astonishing  degree 
of  acuity  is  attained,  or  that  entire  story  plots  are 
clearly  revealed.  This  experiment  may  well  be  worth 
trying  by  anyone  who  has  mental  problems  to  solve, 
or  who  wishes  to  intensify  his  concentrative  powers. 

That  the  value  of  this  practice  is  sub-consciously 
recognized  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  many  people 
"go  home  and  sleep  on"  any  problem  into  which  enters 
a  large  element  of  doubt.  A  night's  sleep  clarifies  the 
subject — frequently  putting  an  entirely  different  aspect 
on  the  matter  than  appeared  when  they  took  it  to  bed 
the  night  before. 

While  the  body  and  the  other  parts  of  the  mind 
are  sleeping,  the  ever-active  sub-conscious  mind  figures 


68  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

out  the  best  way  to  handle  the  question  under  con- 
sideration. 

When  the  sleeper  awakens  in  the  morning  the  sub- 
conscious mind — or  soul,  or  whatever  it  is — presents 
its  owner  with  a  logical  decision  carefully  reasoned 
out.  And,  what's  more,  most  generally  this  decision  is 
the  correct  one. 

Occasionally  this  ego  that  makes  our  wheels  go 
'round,  does  some  extraordinary  thing  with  our  body 
that  would  seem  to  prove  the  assertion  that  the  soul 
has  all  knowledge,  and  that  education  is  merely  a 
method  we  employ  for  calling  this  knowledge  to  the 
surface. 

Such  an  instance  is  recorded  showing  the  unique  co- 
ordination between  muscle  and  mind  in  a  somnambule, 
in  which  a  young  man,  totally  unable  to  swim  in  his 
normal  waking  condition,  was  accustomed  to  getting 
up  at  night  two  or  three  times  a  week  and  swimming 
a  river  two  miles  wide. 

This  young  chap  wasn't  a  fair-weather  swimmer, 
either,  for  on  several  occasions  he  had  pursued  his 
favorite  out-door  sport  during  a  heavy  thunderstorm. 

Psychologists  who  have  investigated  somewhat  sim- 
ilar conditions  insist  that,  were  this  young  man  to  be 
awakened  by  bumping  into  a  log  or  something  while 
swimming,  he  would  inevitably  drown.  For  his  objec- 
tive mind  could  not  transmit  to  his  motor  nervous 


SLEEP-WALKING  AND  SLEEP-WORKING        69 

system  the  impulse  toward  actions  with  which  it  itself 
was  not  acquainted.  Only  that  mind  which  Emerson 
says  contains  all  the  knowledge  that  memorization 
merely  calls  to  the  surface  could  guide  the  muscles 
in  the  co-ordinated  strokes  of  the  swimmer. 

This  is  the  same  form  of  mental  and  muscular  cor- 
relation that  enables  the  somnambule  to  walk  fear- 
lessly, and  usually  with  safety,  upon  some  precarious 
ledge  or  dizzying  height, — or  disport  himself  in  some 
terrifying  situation  that  would  paralyze  with  inhibition 
his  waking  brain  and  muscles. 

While  the  erratic  antics  of  the  sleep-walker  usually 
have  a  "happy  ending"  the  generally  accepted  belief 
that  no  accident  ever  befalls  him  unless  he  happens  to 
be  suddenly  awakened  is  not  altogether  true.  Numer- 
ous deaths  of  sleep-walkers  from  accidents  testify  to 
this. 

It  is  during  these  curious  cataleptic  states  that  many 
of  the  most  marvelous  psychic  experiences  occur.  In 
their  almost  supernatural  uncanniness  they  furnish 
most  fascinating  subjects  for  study  and  speculation. 
One  such  experience  was  given  me  by  a  friend — an  emi- 
nent alienist  and  neurologist  practicing  in  New  York. 

This  was  a  most  remarkable  case  of  somnambulism, 
combined  with  what  is  termed  "externalization  of 
faculties,"  and  other  psychic  powers. 

The  subject  was  a  Bavarian  peasant  girl,   simple, 


70  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

good-hearted,  and  very  ignorant.  The  gentleman  in 
whose  home  the  girl  worked  as  a  domestic  was  a  stu- 
dent of  psychic  phenomena  and  hypnotist  of  consider- 
able skill.  He  had,  it  seems,  developed  a  wonderful 
telepathic  rapport  with  this  girl,  and  had  brought  her 
to  his  friend,  the  neurologist,  for  experimental  work. 

Thrown  into  a  cataleptic  state  of  hypnosis,  the  girl 
would  inhale  deep  draughts  from  a  bottle  of  the  strong- 
est ammonia,  under  the  suggestion  that  it  was  perfume 
of  roses.  She  chewed  a  strychnia  tablet,  perhaps  the 
bitterest  thing  in  the  world,  with  gusto  and  relish, 
under  the  belief  that  it  was  sugar. 

Blank  cartridges  were  fired  off  right  behind  her  ear, 
without  producing  a  single  quaver  of  shock  apprecia- 
tion. Tested  as  to  her  accuracy  in  telepathy,  it  was 
found  that  she  could  read  her  employer's  every  thought. 

My  friend,  the  alienist,  to  extend  the  scope  of  the 
experiment,  directed  that  the  girl — or  her  subliminal 
mind — proceed  upstairs,  enter  a  certain  room  (his 
daughter's  bedroom)  and  describe  what  she  saw  there. 

After  an  interval,  the  girl  announced  that  she  was 
in  a  bedroom,  and  described  in  detail  the  physical 
characteristics  of  the  doctor's  daughter — a  little  girl 
of  eight. 

Asked  to  count  the  number  of  chairs  in  the  room, 
she  announced  that  there  were  nine — two  more  than 
the  number  usually  kept  there. 


SLEEP-WALKING  AND  SLEEP-WORKIXG         71 

Thus  far  the  resuUs  might  have  been  due  merely  to 
the  ability  of  this  girl  to  read  the  doctor's  mind,  and 
to  describe  what  he  well  knew.  But,  on  being  asked 
to  state  what  was  on  the  mantel  the  girl  replied,  "A 
picture  of  a  horse." 

.  Now,  the  doctor  knew  for  a  certainty  that  there 
was  not,  nor  never  had  been,  a  picture  of  a  horse  in 
his  daughter's  room.  So  leaving  the  subject  lying  on 
the  couch,  the  experimenters  proceeded  up  two  flights 
of  stairs  to  the  room  occupied  by  the  little  girl. 

The  mantel  contained  only  the  usual  schoolgirl 
trifles. 

"Just  a  clever  mind-reader,  after  all,"  said  the  doc- 
tor. "She  can't  externalize  her  seeing  faculties.  She 
sees  only  what  you  and  I  have  in  our  minds." 

"Hold  on,"  said  the  doctor's  friend,  stepping  over 
to  the  mantel,  and  picking  up  the  photo  of  a  horse 
that  was  \ymg  flat  on  the  shelf. 

"What's  this?" 

It  was  a  photo  snapshot  of  one  of  the  doctor's  horses, 
taken  in  the  country  by  his  little  girl— a  photo  con- 
cerning which  the  doctor  had  not  the  slightest  knowl- 
edge. 

Returning  to  the  doctor's  study,  the  subject  was 
directed  to  proceed  to  the  room  and  to  touch  the  girl 
she  had  described.  Sound  asleep,  her  eyes  tightly 
closed,  yet  avoiding  the  furniture  as  though  she  were 


72  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

guided  by  spiritual  antennae,  the  girl  arose  from  the 
operating  chair  on  which  she  had  been  stretched  out, 
went  swiftly  out  of  the  room  and  up  the  stairs,  entered 
the  daughter's  bedroom,  touched  her  arm,  and  returned 
to  her  former  place  on  the  couch. 

To  explain  these  things  is  more  difficult  than  to 
describe  them.  It  is  generally  believed,  however,  that 
sleep-walking  is  only  a  form  of  self-induced,  or  auto- 
hypnosis,  and  is  practically  identical  with  the  som- 
nambulism induced  by  hypnotic  suggestion.  The  sug- 
gestions usually  arise  in  a  dream.  Psychologists  are 
quite  certain  of  this,  for  most  frequently,  by  an  effort 
of  concentration,  the  sleep-walker  can  remember  the 
dream  that  "started  him  off." 

Somnambulism  is  most  generally  confined  to  chil- 
dren, or  to  the  youthful — in  other  words,  to  those 
happy  people  who  still  preserve  illusions.  Frequently, 
however,  it  accompanies  a  neurotic  disposition,  or  some 
nervous  disturbance,  such  as  hysteria,  epilepsy,  "fits," 
or  nervous  headaches.  Or  it  may  result  from  any  great 
stress  of  soul,  or  mental  agitation.  The  classical  ex- 
ample of  Lady  Macbeth  is  an  instance  of  this. 

The  sense  of  touch  is  greatly  augmented  during  this 
subconscious  state,  although  the  sense  of  sight  is 
usually  in  abeyance.  The  sense  of  pain  is  also  sus- 
pended and  innumerable  bruises  furnish  proof  that 
these  sleep-walkers  strike  against  furniture  or  otherwise 


SLEEP-WALKING  AND  SLEEP -WORKING        73 

injure  themselves  much  more   freely  than  they  are 
given  credit  for. 

Altogether,  these  phenomena  are  among  the  most 
interesting  and  absorbing  with  which  the  medical  man  or 
the  psychologist  has  to  deal.  For,  working  among  mys- 
terious shadows,  we  grope,  however  haltingly,  at  the 
folds  of  that  dense  veil  that  divides  the  Living  from 
the  Dead,  and  hides  to  mortal  eyes  the  dim  portals  of 
the  Unknown. 


■.€&*.  Vj 


^^■ 


Cup  Bed  of  Mod- 
ern Egypt — t7iade 
of  sun-baked  mud, 
and  used  during 
the  hot  weather, 
and  in  the  open 
as  a  protection 
against  snakes  and 
scorpions. 


Chapter  IX 


WHY  SOME  PEOPLE  ARE 
SLEEPERS" 


LIGHT 


|OME  light  sleepers  are  like  the  boy  who, 
when  asked  how  he   felt  after  a  certain 
feast  of  green  apples,   replied   "I  have  a 
pain  in  the  middle  of  my  stomach,  but  the 
rest  of  me  feels  fine." 

Outside  of  the  fact  that  they  are  light  sleepers,  these 
folks  seem  to  be  all  right.  But  I  have  yet  to  meet  a 
person  who  has  been  for  years  a  persistent  light  sleeper 
who  did  not  have  some  organic  or  nervous  defect — 
some  little  trouble  that  put  him  more  or  less  obviously 
in  the  class  of  those  who  "enjoy  poor  health." 

For,  remember  that  the  final  conversion  of  food  into 

74 


WHY  SOME  ARE  "LIGHT  SLEEPERS"  75 

nutritive  material  is  effected  mostly  during  sleep,  and 
that  the  sounder  and  more  restful  the  sleep  the  more 
quickly  and  more  effectively  this  transformation  is 
effected. 

The  lighter  and  the  more  disturbed  the  sleep  the 
longer  it  takes  to  bring  about  this  transformation,  and 
the  more  incomplete  the  results  of  the  process — the 
quicker  the  machine  wears  out. 

The  onset  of  sleep  is  usually  a  gradual  process.  We 
don't  go  to  sleep  "all  over  at  once."  Sense  after  sense 
is  extinguished,  always  in  regular  order — reserving  for 
the  last  those  senses  most  useful  in  w^arning  us  of 
danger.  These  are  the  last  to  go  off  duty  and  the  first 
to  report  for  work  again. 

The  sense  of  sight,  of  course,  precedes  the  others. 
We  haven't  much  use  for  vision  at  night,  anyhow. 
Few  of  us  sleep  with  our  eyes  open — except  in  a 
figurative  way. 

The  next  sense  to  leave  is  the  sense  of  taste.  Then 
smell  goes  to  sleep — although  some  individuals,  as,  for 
instance,  foresters  who  must  guard  against  forest  fires 
— have  trained  this  sense  until  it  is  wonderfully  alert. 

The  next  sense  to  depart  for  slumber-land  is  hearing. 
Last  of  all  we  lose  the  sense  of  touch. 

This  same  gradual  loss  of  tone  has  been  measured 
in  the  muscles.  We  go  to  sleep  first  in  our  feet.  The 
relaxation  spreads  up  the  limbs  and  trunk,  until  it 


76  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

finally  reaches  the  brain.     Then  we  are  asleep  "all 
over,"    When  we  wake  we  reverse  this  process. 

The  sense  of  touch,  being  the  most  important  of  all 
the  senses  in  warning  us  of  imminent  clanger,  is  the 
first  to  awake.  The  quickest  of  all  ways  to  waken  a 
man  is  to  touch  him — although  certain  sound  sleepers 
require  to  be  shaken  or  rolled  out  of  bed  before  they 
come  back  to  consciousness. 

The  next  quickest  way  is  through  the  hearing — - 
although  this  is  difficult  for  some  mothers  to  believe 
after  they  have  shouted  themselves  hoarse  trying  to 
get  Johnnie  up  for  breakfast. 

Next,  a  man  can  be  aroused  by  some  pungent  odor. 
And  finally  by  the  sense  of  taste. 

As  a  usual  thing  the  more  active  we  are  in  the  day- 
time the  more  quiet  we  are  at  night.  There  isn't 
anything  that  will  turn  light  sleep  into  deep  refre!.liing 
slumber  like  a  generous  dose  of  work  or  exercise — in 
the  open  air,  if  possible.  For  a  healthy,  "symmetrical 
fatigue"  is  something  that  can't  be  bought.  It's  got 
to  be  earned.  And  it's  well  worth  working  for — 
always  in  moderation.  Certain  artificial  measures, 
based  upon  a  control  of  the  circulation  of  blood  in 
the  brain  have,  from  time  to  time,  been  advised  for 
deepening  sleep.  All  these  procedures  are  splendid 
things  to  avoid — even  though  they  may  occasionally 
be  sound  in  principle. 


WHY  SOME  ARE  "LIGHT  SLEEPERS" 77^ 

It  is  interesting  to  know,  however,  that  if  the  brain 
be  deprived  of  blood  by  pressing  for  30  seconds  the 
carotid  arteries  (which  carry  the  blood  to  the  head) 
deep  sleep,  or  rather  unconsciousness,  is  immediately 
brought  about. 

Similar  pressure  on  the  jugular  veins  (which  carry 
the  blood  back  from  the  head  to  the  lungs)  also  pro- 
duces loss  of  consciousness — but  from  exactly  the 
opposite  cause — congestion  of  blood  in  the  brain. 

The  Japanese,  with  their  almost  uncanny  knowledge 
of  vulnerable  centres  in  the  body,  before  the  discovery 
of  anasthetics,  used  to  employ  these  pressures  to  induce 
anasthesia  for  extracting  teeth  and  for  similar  short 
minor  operations. 

They  gave  it  up,  however.  For  there  was  no  way 
of  insuring  that  their  patient  would  wake  up  again, 
after  they  removed  the  pressure  from  his  blood  vessels. 

There  is  another  fetish  connected  with  sleep  which 
has  a  very  one-legged  foundation.  This  has  to  do  with 
the  influence  of  certain  kinds  of  food  in  bringing 
about  sleep. 

It  is  pretty  safe  to  say  that  no  food,  in  itself,  con- 
tains any  soporofic  or  hypnotic  quality.  If  any  one 
should  happen  to  cure  himself  of  sleeplessness  by  eat- 
ing some  particular  kind  of  food  at  night,  it  is  because 
he  has  a  very  large  and  prominent  bump  of  faith  that 
is  soothed  by  this  idea. 


78  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

As  a  matter  of  fact  a  whole  barrel  of  lettuce, 
flanked  by  a  bushel  of  onions,  doesn't  contain  suffi- 
cient hypnotic  to  put  a  flea  asleep.  And  the  same  is 
true  of  milk. 

If  these  things  "work"  at  all  it  is  because,  during 
the  process  of  digestion,  sufficient  blood  is  withdrawn 
from  the  brain  to  induce  the  brain  anemia  favorable 
to  sleep.  But  any  other  easily-digested  food  would  do 
the  trick  equally  well — or  even  better.  For  it  might 
be  less  likely  to  ferment  than  onions  or  lettuce,  and 
therefore  less  likely  to  cause  gaseous  distension — and 
wakefulness. 

Part  of  the  blood  withdrawn  from  the  brain  is  dis- 
tributed through  the  network  of  capillaries  under  the 
skin.  This  causes  the  pretty  rosy  flush,  so  characteris- 
tic in  healthy  sleeping  babies.  It  is  also  responsible 
for  the  distressing  itchiness  and  irritation  of  the  skin, 
from  which  many  suffer  in  winter — especially  on  first 
retiring. 

I  have  spoken  before  of  the  value  of  pure  air  in 
the  sleeping  chamber,  but  it  cannot  be  too  strongly 
emphasized  that  sound,  refreshing  sleep  is  never,  under 
any  circumstances,  to  be  found  in  the  same  room  with 
a  lot  of  old  carbon  gases,  whether  they  come  from  air 
that  has  been  rebreathed  a  half  a  dozen  times,  or  from 
stale  tobacco  smoke,  or  from  a  defective  stove  or  flue, 
or  from  any  other  cause. 


WHY  SOME  ARE  "LIGHT  SLEEPERS" 79 

In  fact,  if  the  light  from  the  early  rising  sun  doesn't 
get  one  up  before  he  "has  his  sleep  out,"  the  best  place 
to  find  sound  health-bringing  sleep  is  out  of  doors. 

It  may  be  some  comfort  for  light  sleepers  and  those 
who  require  many  hours  of  sleep  in  order  to  properly 
refresh  themselves  to  know  that  they  "are  not  the 
only  ones."  All  great  men  didn't  emulate  the  weasel 
in  their  sleeping  habits. 

Indeed,  some  of  the  most  brilliant  men,  instead  of 
calling  3  or  4  hours  a  night's  sleep,  were  able  to  work 
only  2  or  3  hours  out  of  24. 

Darwin,  for  all  his  prodigious  output  of  creative 
work,  was  able  to  be  at  his  desk  only  two  or  three 
hours  each  day.  Spencer  worked  only  four  hours  out 
of  twenty-four. 

And  the  famous  philosopher,  Descartes,  as  well  as 
the  big-brained  Dr.  Johnson,  used  frequently  to  lie 
abed  until  two  or  three  in  the  afternoon. 

Perhaps  the  champion  of  all  long-distance  sleepers, 
however — excluding  Hindoo  fakirs,  buried  alive  for 
months,  and  other  trance  subjects — was  Moivre,  the 
French  mathematician.  Moivre,  during  his  old  age, 
used  to  sleep  twenty  hours  a  day,  leaving  only  four 
hours  for  science — and  everything  else. 

Of  course,  the  influence  of  noise  in  lightening  and 
otherwise  disturbing  sleep  is  obvious  to  everybody. 
Perhaps  the  most  ubiquitous  and  omnipresent  of  all 


80 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

night  noises  is  the  common  or  garden  variety  of  snore. 
It  is  probably  the  most  exasperating,  irritating  vocal 
effort  that  has  been  invented.  If  real  justice  reigned 
in  this  world  it  would  probably  be  considered  a  justi- 
fiable cause  for  homicide. 

There  is  balm  in  Gilead,  however.  The  evil  is  cor- 
rectible  by  the  diligent  application  of  intelligence. 

For  man  is  the  only  animal  in  the  world  that  sleeps 
flat  on  his  back  with  his  mouth  wide  open.  Hence 
the  snore;  for,  if  we  stop  to  think  but  a  moment,  the 
mechanics  of  snoring  are  readily  understood. 

When  the  head  is  held  upright,  and  the  respiratory 
passages  are  normally  aligned,  snoring  is  impossible. 
When  the  head  tilts  forward  there  is  a  relaxation  of 
some  of  the  respiratory  muscles,  notably  the  soft  palate. 
This  membrane  divides  the  air  currents,  so  to  speak, 
and  under  the  stimulus  of  inspiration  and  expiration 
this  membrane  flaps  free  in  the  breeze — which  relaxa- 
tion is  triumphantly  proclaimed  in  a  reverberating  solo. 

The  cure  for  snoring  is  to  breathe  always  through 
the  nose.  This  is,  perhaps,  not  so  easy  as  it  may  sound ; 
for,  as  in  hay  fever,  in  which  condition  almost  invari- 
ably there  is  some  abnormality  in  the  nasal  passages, 
the  habit  of  snoring  may  depend  primarily  upon 
adenoids,  enlarged  turbinated  bones,  a  twisted  septum, 
or  even  an  overfilled  and  spongy  mucous  membrane 
lining  of  the  nose. 


WHY  SOME  ARE  "LIGHT  SLEEPERS"  81 

So,  first  of  all,  the  advice  of  a  nose  and  throat 
specialist  should  be  sought,  and  if  there  are  any  nasal 
obstructions  these  should  be  removed. 

If,  after  the  nose  is  cleared,  mouth  breathing  still 
persists,  a  piece  of  isinglass  court  plaster  may  be  placed 
over  the  lips  before  retiring  and  the  mouth  thereby 
kept  closed.  In  fact,  it  might  be  wise  for  all  who  have 
a  tendency  to  sleep  with  the  mouth  open  to  adopt 
this  simple  expedient  as  a  routine  measure. 

Next,  the  height  of  the  pillow — for  every  adult 
should  sleep  with  a  pillow  in  order  to  maintain  normal 
alignment  of  the  respiratory  organs  and  tube — should 
be  regulated ;  neither  too  high,  for  this  will  tilt  the 
head  forward,  producing  relaxation,  nor  too  low,  which 
stretches  the  muscles  and  causes  a  compensatory 
sagging  of  the  lower  jaw. 

A  French  specialist  even  advises  the  wearing  at 
night  of  a  sort  of  yoke,  which  supports  the  chjn  and 
prevents  it  from  "snugging  down"  on  the  collarbone. 
Equally  good  results  may  follow  the  wearing  of  a 
bandage  passed  under  the  chin  and  pinned  tight  over 
the  top  of  the  head. 

Next,  the  snorer  must  be  discouraged  from  sleeping 
on  his  back.  A  heavy  cloth  bandage  or  towel,  bound 
'round  the  waist  and  tied  at  the  back  in  a  large,  fat 
knot,  will  effectually  prevent  this;  for  the  offender 
will  have  either  to  sleep  on  his  side  or  not  at  all. 


82  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

If  even  the  most  hardened  sinner  can  be  induced  to 
follow  this  line  of  treatment  consistently,  his  cure  is 
almost  certain. 

Also,  too,  the  blighting  influence  or  any  sort  of  pain 
upon  sleep  is  apparent  to  everyone. 

The  disturbing  influence  of  attempting  to  share  a 
bed  with  another  sleeper  is  another  common  cause  of 
light  sleep.    This  will  be  treated  fully  in  Chapter  14. 

Perhaps  the  chief  reason  why  some  people  are  light 
sleepers  is  because  they  do  not  relax,  either  from 
disturbance — within  or  outside  of  them — or,  quite  fre- 
quently, because  of  slight  noises  of  a  creaky  bed  or  a 
slipping  spring. 

Dr.  I.  H.  Coriat,  in  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psy- 
chology, Vol.  VI,  page  329-367,  points  out  that — 

"When  we  relax,  the  motor  phenomena  become  less- 
ened, and  this  tends  to  produce  drowsiness  and  finally 
sleep,  due  to  a  diminution  of  peripheral  stimuli  from 
the  muscles  to  the  brain,  produced  by  the  act  of  mus- 
cular relaxation." 

In  other  words,  the  Doctor  contends  that  the  brain  is 
kept  awake  by  the  messages  it  is  constantly  receiving 
from  tense  muscles,  and  that  when  the  muscles  finally 
relax  and  stop  sending  their  irritating  impulses  to  the 
brain,  we  go  to  sleep — and  not  before. 

So  every  one  who  sleeps  lightly  and  brokenly  owes  it 


WHY  SOME  ARE  "LIGHT  SLEEPERS"  83 

as  a  duty  to  himself  and  his  long-suffering  family  to 
find  out  what's  the  matter  with  him  or  his  bed-room 
equipment — and  reform  it.  For  that  way  safety 
lies. 


State  Bed  of  Louis  XVIII..  last  Bourbon  King  of  France— reproduced  uy 

permission  from   a  photograph  in   the  Art   Collections  of  the   New    York 

Public  Library. 


.-==£ 


ij, 


Egyptian 
Head 
Rest  of 
Ivory. 


Chapter  X 


WHAT  BAD  SLEEP  DOES  TO  GOOD 
HEALTH 

ilSTORY  tells  us  that  Perseus,  the  last  king 
of  ancient  Macedonia,  was  a  very  healthy- 
king.  But  in  less  than  a  week  after  he 
was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Romans  he  was 
dead.  He  had  been  "done  to  death"  by  his  Roman 
guards,  who  would  not  permit  him  to  sleep.  Between 
poor  Perseus  and  any  of  a  half  dozen  sufferers  from 
insomnia  there  is  a  well-trodden  path  not  always 
clearly  defined  perhaps — but  there,  nevertheless. 

It  is  of  course,  difficult  to  put  one's  finger  upon  the 
exact  spot  where  health  ends  and  disease  begins  from 
lack  of  sleep.  Yet  we  can  say  for  certain  that  loss  of 
sleep  produces  definite  pathological  conditions, 

85 


86  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

The  irritability,  nervousness,  inability  to  concen- 
trate, progressive  weakness,  and  deficient  physical  tone 
due  to  sleeplessness  everybody  has  seen,  at  some  time 
or  other.  Thousands  of  households  know  from  pain- 
ful experience  that  when  father  comes  to  breakfast 
as  cross  as  a  bear,  whose  head  is  sore  both  inside  and 
outside — he  must  have  gotten  up  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  bed.  And  this  is  quite  likely  to  be  the  side 
he  didn't  do  much  sleeping  on  the  night  before. 

I  remember  also  an  old  teacher  of  mathematics  who 
could  pick  out  unerringly  even  the  girls  in  the  class 
who  hadn't  gotten  their  full  quota  of  sleep.  He  told 
this  by  the  intensification  of  our  natural  stupidity. 

But  there  is  something  much  more  serious  than 
these  symptoms  caused  by  a  deficiency  of  the  proper 
kind  of  sleep.  Irregular  sleep  and  insufficient  sleep, 
continued  over  a  long  enough  period  of  time,  tends 
to  produce  certain  definite  conditions  that  materially 
impair  health  and  shorten  life. 

The  most  common  of  these  is  mental  and  bodily 
exhaustion.  This  brings  about  pallor,  muscular  de- 
bility, irritability  and  restlessness.  It  hampers  the 
natural  growth  and  nutrition  of  the  body. 

A  very  common  result  of  this  lowering  of  tone  is 
anemia — which  causes  the  tissues  to  lose  in  oxidizing 
power,  and  the  blood  to  lose  its  oxygen-carrying  ca- 
pacity.    Also  a  generally  deficient  resisting  ability. 


WHAT  BAD  SLEEP  DOFS  TO  GOOD  HEALTH    87 

This  makes  those  who  suffer  from  this  debiUtated 
condition  more  predisposed  to  contract  tuberculosis, 
or  in  fact  any  contagious  disease  to  which  they  might 
be  exposed.  It  also  renders  them  more  susceptible  to 
the  disorders  that  spring  from  what  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  called  "the  sin  of  not  choosing  one's  grand- 
parents intelligently." 

Prolonged  sleeplessness  occasionally  produces  inter- 
mittent action  of  the  heart.  This  may,  in  time,  be- 
come organic,  if  long  enough  continued. 

Those  who  have  these  heart  symptoms  experience 
a  sensation  of  coldness  or  of  faintness  that  sweeps 
over  them.  Sometimes  there  is  a  feeling  as  though 
one  were  suddenly  plunged  into  a  fog. 

This  clears  up  by  an  effort— by  whipping  oneself 
to  the  task  of  the  moment.  But  unless  the  condition 
that  causes  these  unpleasant  heart  sensations  is  cor- 
rected, the  heart  sooner  or  later  develops  an  irregular 
action.  This  brings  about  true  "heart  disease,"  and 
in  hundreds  of  instances  is  the  actual,  contributing 
cause  of  death. 

Also,  every  one  knows  that  nothing  begets  the  habit 
of  sleeplessness  like  sleeplessness  itself.  The  very  idea, 
or  fear  that  the  bird  of  sleep  isn't  going  to  tuck  it's 
tired  head  under  it's  wing  for  you  that  night  keeps 
it  from  doing  so.     Thus  many  cases  of  extreme  in- 


88  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

somnia,  and  all  the  evils  that  go  with  it,  are  begun — 
and  kept  up. 

A  victim  of  this  condition  becomes  a  typical  hypo- 
chondriac in  time — imagining  all  sorts  of  dreadful 
things  about  himself. 

Even  when  he  should  be  sitting  still  and  resting  he 
is  biting  his  finger  nails,  or  rat-tatting  on  the  table, 
or  fidgeting  around  with  something  or  other — never 
at  ease  for  a  moment.  The  energy  he  wastes  in  these 
vitality-squandering  activities,  if  properly  harnessed, 
would  run  a  lathe,  or  put  through  a  lot  of  really  use- 
ful work. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  one  chief  pre-disposing 
factor  in  the  increase  of  arterio-sclerosis — or  harden- 
injr  of  the  arteries — in  modern  life  is  the  increase  in 
sleeplessness.  Thousands  of  men  and  women,  living 
in  the  stress  and  strain  of  modern  business  and  social 
conditions,  don't  get  enough  of  the  right  kind  of  sleep. 

The  effect  of  this  upon  the  nutrition  of  the  body, 
and  upon  the  proper  metabolism  of  the  food,  is  a 
serious  contributing  factor  in  the  development  of  this 
common  disease. 

Thousands  of  men,  high  in  the  world  of  science, 
finance,  legislation,  or  business,  have  been  hustled  un- 
derground 10  to  30  years  before  their  time — just  be- 
cause they  thought  hours  spent  in  sleep  were  wasted. 


WHAT  BAD  SLEEP  DOES  TO  GOOD  HEALTH    89 

or  because  they  had  forgotten  their  boyhood's  art  of 
sleeping  soundly. 

Even  animals  show  the  influence  of  sleeplessness  in 
their  susceptibility  to  disease  of  the  heart  and  blood 
vessels — as  Doctor  George  W.  Crile  points  out  in  his 
fascinating  book,  "Man,  An  Adaptive  Mechanism." 

Dr.  Crile  shows  that  high-spirited  wild  animals  in 
captivity,  mettlesome  race  horses,  and  the  dray  horse, 
fretted  and  often  driven  beyond  their  capacity — are 
frequently  sufferers  from  heart  and  blood-vessel  dis- 
ease, while  the  sleepy,  unfettered  cow  is  exempt. 

This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  we  have  been  harp- 
ing a  little  too  busily  on  that  "go  to  the  ant,  thou 
sluggard"  string,  and  that  the  sooner  we  reform  and 
take  the  reflective  cow  for  a  model,  the  longer  a  good 
many  of  us  will  live. 

There  is  another  matter  which  I  do  not  recall  hav- 
ing seen  or  heard  of  before,  and  this  is  the  effect  of 
loss  of  sleep  upon  the  eyes.  We  all  know  the  "bright" 
eyes  that  shine  after  a  good  night's  sleep.  And  we 
have  seen  the  "heavy"  eyes  that  follow  a  sleepless 
vigil. 

But  perhaps  there  are  not  many  who  stop  to  think 
that  there  is  an  actual  change  in  the  "strength"  of 
the  eye — in  the  ability  of  it's  ciliary  muscles  to  "focus" 
— dependent  upon  the  restedness  or  the  unrestedness 
of  these  eye  muscles. 


90  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  sleep  will  correct  a  re- 
fractive error,  or  that  by  getting  the  proper  rest  one 
can  dispense  with  glasses. 

But  I  do  believe  that  the  greatest  of  all  treatments 
for  weak  eyes,  the  treatment  best  calculated  to  make 
them  strong  and  efficient  and  restore  them  to  their 
normal  condition  when  overstrained  is  sleep.  Noth- 
ing in  the  drug  store  or  in  the  optical  shops  does  so 
much  good  for  tired,  overworked  eyes  as  sound  sleep. 

Indeed,  I  have  seen  a  number  of  instances  lately 
in  which  correction  of  the  habit  of  insomnia  relieved 
a  distressing  eye  strain  that  did  not  yield  even  to 
refractive  treatment  with  glasses — probably  because 
the  actual  condition  varied  so  greatly  with  the  rested- 
ness  or  the  fatigue  of  the  eye  muscles. 

It  may  be  quite  probable  that  the  eye  muscles  of 
thousands  of  children  and  young  people  might  so  be 
strengthened  by  increasing  the  hours  of  sleep  of  these 
young  folks — or  deepening  the  sleep  they  manage  to 
secure — that  many  of  them  might  well  dispense  with 
glasses  for  many  years  to  come. 

This,  of  course,  does  not  imply  that  where  the  eyes 
are  structurally  defective,  lenses  are  not  indicated. 

So  we  know  that  bad  sleep  is  "bad  medicine."  It 
tears  down,  it  ''slugs"  all  the  vital  processes.  It  de- 
creases elimination,  it  increases  susceptibility  to  pain, 


WHAT  BAD  SLEEP  DOES  TO  GOOD  HEALTH    91 

it  retards  healing  of  all  kinds — especially  of  wounds 
and  it  saps  courage. 

It  makes  a  wreck  of  an  athlete,  a  "fright"  of  a 
beauty,  a  dunce  of  a  scholar,  and  a  four-o'clock-in- 
the-morning  coward  of  an  eight-o'clock-in-evening 
hero.  I  don't  remember  who  said,  "God  never  did 
a  kinder  thing  for  man  than  to  make  him  sleep  when 
he  is  sleepy."  But  whoever  did,  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about. 


A  Bed 
from    the 
Admiralty 
Islands. 


Chapter  XI 


CURING  THE    INSOMNIAC 


''HE  most  dangerous  things  about  insomnia 
r^  are  the  remedies  used  to  dub  it  into  in- 


,  P^  <4  sensibihty.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  insom- 
^^^^K^  nia  is  hkely  to  be  something  that  should 
not  be  clubbed.  If  we  could  find  out  what  this  some- 
thing else  is,  and  cure  it,  the  insomnia  would  take 
care  of  itself. 

To  bludgeon  an  undernourished  set  of  nerves,  an 
irritated  digestive  or  circulatory  apparatus,  or  an 
oxygen-starved  system  with  "sleeping  powders"  or 
"knockout  drops"  is  not  only  foolish,  but  actually 
criminal. 

Because  an  individual  has,  before  retiring,  filled  his 
mind  with  an  exciting  romance  or  his  stomach  with 
an  indigestible  meal,  or  has  stimulated  his  heart  and 
nervous  system  with  too  much  tea,  coffee,  tobacco,  or 
alcohol,  is  no  reason  he  should  further  poison  himself 
with  hypnotics  or  narcotics.     For,  be  it  remembered, 

92 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC  93 

excessive  drinking,  smoking,  eating,  reading,  or  play- 
ing increases  blood  tension  in  the  arteries,  and  makes 
the  heart  beat  more  rapidly.  And  anything  that  makes 
the  heart  beat  more  rapidly  around  bedtime  is  good 
for  insomnia,  but  bad  for  its  victim. 

Some  reckless  optimists  there  are  who  contend  that 
insomnia  really  has  no  existence  save  as  a  figment  of 
an  overactive  imagination.  They  cheerfully  dispose  of 
it  by  asserting  that  an  insomniac  is  merely  a  pessimist. 

But  it  is  now  generally  conceded  that  a  pessimist  is 
one  who  has  to  live  with  and  listen  to  an  optimist. 
And  the  optimist  who  insists  that  you  were  asleep, 
only  you  didn't  know  it,  or  that  you  awoke  to  hear 
the  clock  toll  off  the  lingering  hours,  and  then  like 
Omar  Khayyam's  wise  men,  "to  sleep  returned,"  or 
that  even  if  you  didn't  sleep  for  a  few  weeks  or  a 
few  months  it  wouldn't  matter  anyhow,  is  partly  re- 
sponsible for  your  pessimism — if  you  are  an  insomniac. 

Sleeplessness  is  a  most  real  and  tangible  demon  to 
the  unfortunate  upon  whose  shoulders  it  perches.  In 
fact,  there  is  only  one  thing  that  is  much  worse  than 
insomnia,  and  that  is  worrying  about  it.  Frequently 
the  worst  sufferers  from  insomnia  are  the  family  and 
friends  of  the  insomniac,  who  have  to  listen  to  the 
lugubrious  tales  of  his  sleeplessness.  Staying  awake 
in  a  comfortable  bed  for  a  few  hours  at  a  time  o' 
night  isn't  nearly  so  dangerous  as  talking  and  think- 


94  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

ing  about  it  all  the  following  day,  and  filling  one's  self 
with  the  auto-suggestion  that  the  performance  is  going 
to  be  repeated.  If  one  could  take  insomnia  calmly, 
even  thankfully,  as  affording  a  splendid  opportunity 
for  lying  awake  and  thinking  noble  thoughts,  the  in- 
somnia would  promptly  get  disgusted,  pack  up,  and 
leave  for  more  promising  fields. 

But  we  are  not  so  constituted.  If  we  have  done 
one  of  a  thousand  things  we  should  not  have  done, 
or  have  left  undone  one  of  an  equal  number  of  things 
we  should  have  done,  and  if  we  lie  awake  for  a  few 
hours,  or  even  an  entire  night,  as  a  consequence,  we 
immediately  start  a  free-hand  worrying  spell  for  fear 
we  shall  repeat  the  procedure  the  next  night.  And  so 
greatly  do  we  dread  this  that  we  usually  do  it. 

This  is  the  beginning  of  what  might  be  called 
"psychic  insomnia,"  a  condition  that  has  no  particular 
reason  for  existence  beyond  its  initial  mental  impulse, 
aided  and  abetted  by  an  overfertile  imagination.  Yet 
many  of  our  most  persistent  insomniacs  got  their  start 
in  just  this  way. 

And  when  insomnia  gets  firmly  established  what  it 
can't  accomplish  in  the  way  of  running  down  a  nerv- 
ous system,  paralyzing  the  mental  faculties,  "taking 
the  tuck"  out  of  a  fellow,  or  spoiling  a  woman's  good 
looks,  isn't  worth  accomplishing. 

The  real,  genuine,  dyed-in-the-wool  insomnia  has  its 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC  95 

origin  in  a  variety  of  causes.  One  of  these  is  worry 
— business,  domestic,  social,  or  just  plain  worry.  The 
cure  is  ridiculously  simple.  Merely  stop  worrying. 
Most  of  the  philosophers,  from  Marcus  Aurelius  to 
Pastor  Wagner, — none  of  whom  probably  ever  had 
much  to  worry  about, — have  given  explicit  directions 
as  to  methods. 

Given  sufficient  time,  the  chances  are  that  tired 
Nature  will  ultimately  reassert  itself,  drive  Carking 
Care  from  her  perch,  and  help  sleepless  ones  make  up 
for  lost  sleep.  For  finally — and  this  is  an  axiom  in 
psychology — the  system  fails  to  respond  to  a  stimulus 
that  does  not  increase  in  intensity,  and  the  causes  of 
grief  and  worry  usually  decrease  in  power  as  time 
elapses. 

To  have  an  occasional  wakeful  night  is  an  evidence 
of  intelligence.  Hardly  a  normal  man  or  woman  but 
will  sometimes  have  experiences  that  cause  a  period 
of  wakefulness.  Only  human  clods  sleep  undisturbed, 
through  every  sort  of  storm  and  stress.  Until  the 
fear  of  sleeplessness  becomes  a  full-grown  phobia, 
no  anxiety  need  be  felt.  Insomniphobia  (to  coin  a 
term),  the  fear  of  insomnia,  or  mere  overanxiety  to 
get  to  sleep,  is  more  to  be  dreaded  than  insomnia. 

Many  insomniacs  of  a  vegetative  turn  of  mind  and 
body  lie  awake  at  night  because  they  haven't  been  suf- 
ficiently awake  by  day.     This  is  also  true  of  those  of 


96  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

sedentary  habits  of  life,  whose  brains  only  are  awake, 
while  their  bodies  hibernate  in  an  office  chair.  Some- 
thing that  will  keep  these  awake  when  they  should  be 
awake  would  be  more  likely  to  make  them  sleep  when 
they  should  be  asleep  than  almost  any  other  form  of 
treatment. 

Active  exercise — any  exercise  in  the  alphabet,  from 
Alewife  fishing  to  "doing  the  Zoo" — will  give  ex- 
cellent results  in  many  cases  of  insomnia.  None  sleep 
quite  so  soundly  as  those  who  have  earned  it  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brow. 

A  brisk  but  not  too  fatiguing  walk  before  retiring 
will  sometimes  work  wonders  for  either  a  human  sloth 
or  a  brain  abuser.  A  good  measure  of  what  is  appro- 
priate in  the  way  of  exercise  would  be  to  walk  in  one 
direction  until  one  begins  to  feel  tired.  Then  turn, 
and  walk  back  the  same  distance,  on  the  principle  that 
a  little  too  much  walking  produces  just  sufficient  fa- 
tigue for  sleeping. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  exercise,  it  is 
curious  to  note  that  one  may  have  too  much  of  a  good 
thing.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  many  become  suf- 
ficiently tired  to  stay  awake,  developing  insomnia  for 
this  reason.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  fatigue 
poisons  resulting  from  the  wearing  out  of  a  cell  tissue 
accumulate  in  the  blood  stream  faster  than  they  can 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 97 

be  oxidized  or  eliminated,  thereby  poisoning  nerves 
and  brain,  and  causing  irritability  and  wakefulness. 

A  warm  bath  before  retiring,  a  wet  pack,  a  cold 
cloth  at  the  head  or  the  back,  or  other  measures  tend- 
ing to  promote  elimination  and  equalize  the  circula- 
tion, will  usually  give  satisfactory  results.  For  those 
of  sedentary  habits  who  are  troubled  with  cold  feet, 
a  hot  footbath,  or  better  still  a  cold  footbath,  with 
vigorous  friction  following  it,  and  the  wearing  of  a 
warm  pair  of  bed  stockings,  will  often  induce  sleep. 

Fresh  air  is  also  valuable  in  these  cases;  for,  lack- 
ing sufficient  oxygen,  the  fatigue  poisons  are  not 
oxidized  in  the  lungs  and  exhaled  as  carbon  dioxide. 
This  maintains  nerve  irritation  and  restlessness,  which 
are  reflected  in  insomnia. 

Or  the  sleep  may  be  light,  the  victim  of  bad  air 
and  fatigue  poison  rising  in  the  morning  more  tired 
than  when  he  went  to  bed.  To  avoid  this  open  the 
bedroom  windows  early  in  the  morning,  then  forget 
to  close  them  at  night.  Strict  observance  of  this  omis- 
sion will  cure  many  of  these  can't-sleepers. 

Perhaps  the  most  common  of  all  causes  of  insomnia 
is  nervous  exhaustion  from  nerve  starvation  (neu- 
rasthenia), which  especially  afflicts  those  who  burn  the 
candle  of  health  at  both  ends.  That  neurasthenia  is 
an  actual  disease,  insomnia  being  merely  one  of  its 
many   distressing  symptoms,   thousands   will   testify. 


98 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

However,  it  is  encouraging  to  know  that  neurasthenia 
frequently  has  an  actual  physical  (or  rather  patholog- 
ical) basis  somewhere,  if  we  can  but  discover  it. 

It  may  be  overwork,  especially  with  exhausting 
studies,  or  mental  labors  practised  at  night,  worry, 
some  digestive  or  assimilative  defect,  improper  met- 
abolism, imperfect  elimination,  or  any  of  a  hundred 
other  things  that  interfere  with  the  perfect  function- 
ing of  the  body. 

To  diagnose  the  particular  pinprick  that  is  respon- 
sible for  the  sleeplessness  of  neurasthenia  frequently 
demands  much  time  and  study  on  the  part  of  the 
physician,  and  much  patience  on  the  part  of  the  suf- 
ferer. But  it's  the  only  way  permanently  to  cure  in- 
somnia arising  from  this  cause. 

Sometimes  an  unusual  noise  keeps  one  awake.  If 
this  persists  for  a  few  successive  nights  it  fastens  a 
habit  of  intense  listening  upon  the  would-be  sleeper, 
which  effectually  prevents  his  passage  across  to  Slum- 
ber Land.  Or  he  may  merely  be  overexcited,  or  suf- 
fering from  some  mental  strain,  and  the  usual  gentle 
noises  of  the  elevated  trains  or  the  ambulance  bells 
become  an  actual  racket.  Temporarily  placing  a  plug 
of  vaselined  cotton  in  each  ear  will  cut  off  that  source 
of  irritation. 

An  earthquake  is  not  more  disturbing  to  a  normal 
mortal  than  is  an  ordinary  fly,  buzzing  and  bumping 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 99 

against  the  window  pane,  to  the  overexcited  nerves  of 
the  insomniac.  He  intensifies  the  evil  by  exaggerating 
the  sounds  he  hears,  and  by  concentrating  his  atten- 
tion upon  them.  Thus  will  he  lie  awake  half  the 
night  listening  for  a  noise  he  heard  the  night  before.. 
And  he  is  almost  as  much  disturbed  by  the  sounds  he 
doesn't  hear  as  by  those  he  does. 

Put  not  your  faith  in  a  sojourn  in  the  country  for 
the  cure  of  noise  insomnia,  so  long  as  you  carry  the 
particular  thing  with  you  that  causes  susceptibility  to 
sounds.  To  city-bred  ears  and  nerves  the  country  is 
the  noisest  place  in  the  world. 

The  maddening  shrill  of  the  crickets  and  treetoads, 
the  insistent  assertion  that  Katy  did  or  didn't,  the  full- 
throated  "gurrup"  of  frogs,  the  untimely  clarion  of 
leather-lunged  roosters,  and  the  bawling  plaint  of  a 
bereft  bossy  for  the  bull-calf  apple  of  her  eye,  con- 
spire to  drive  a  nervous  man  or  woman,  unused  to 
these  ear-splitting  sounds,  almost  into  hysterics. 

Still  further  to  demonstrate  that  "there  is  no  good 
nor  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  so,"  we  must  remember 
that  a  certain  amount  of  noise — about  what  the  in- 
dividual is  accustomed  to  in  normal  conditions — is 
seemingly  essential  to  deep  slumber.  Indeed,  it  is 
highly  probable  that  the  inability  of  many  of  us  to 
sleep  soundly  in  strange  surroundings  is  due  to  the 


100  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

fact  that  we  miss  the  familiar  noises,  and  subconsci- 
ously resent  the  intrusion  of  unfamiliar  ones. 

In  fact,  if  there  isn't  a  definite  agglomeration  of 
usual  sounds  upon  which  the  insomnia  can  focus  oc- 
casional attention,  he  invents  new  ones  of  his  ov;n. 
And  if  he  has  an  active  imagination  in  good  working 
order,  he  can  conjure  up  sufficient  incident  and  ac- 
cident, and  moving  tale  by  field  or  flood,  to  keep  him 
awake  twenty-five  hours  out  of  twenty- four.  So  it 
isn't  wise  to  anchor  in  the  middle  of  a  calm  lake,  or 
to  pitch  camp  in  a  desert,  unless  the  thing  that  is  caus- 
ing the  insomnia  is  left  behind. 

For  those  forms  of  insomnia  due  to  heart  disease, 
chronic  congestion  or  organic  disease  of  the  brain,  in- 
sanity or  melancholia,  kidney  disease,  cancer,  eye 
strain,  gout,  or  rheumatism,  it  is  obvious  that  special 
medical  attention  is  required.  This  is  also  true  of 
any  condition  jtliat  depends  upon  pain,  cough,  short- 
ness of  breath,  excessive  sweating,  or  delirium  for 
keeping  its  victim  awake. 

In  the  sleeplessness  of  typhoid  or  other  fevers  con- 
tinued nervous  or  muscular  activity  completely  ex- 
hausts the  vital  forces.  It  may  be  absolutely  necessary 
to  secure  sleep  in  order  to  save  life.  All  means  that 
accomplish  this  result  are  good  means. 

One  of  the  most  effective  methods  of  inducing 
sleep,  one  that  can  be  put  into  practical  applicatioi 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC  101 

by  almost  any  intelligent  man  or  woman,  is  the  em- 
ployment of  therapeutic  suggestion.  It  requires  no 
special  powers,  and  but  little  practice,  to  become 
proficient  in  treating  others  by  this  method.  The  chief 
requisite  is  confidence  in  yourself,  supplemented,  of 
course,  by  a  willingness  on  the  part  of  the  patient  to 
try  as  far  as  possible  to  make  his  mind  a  blank — to 
busy  the  brain  over  nothing. 

Take  a  position  by  the  side  of  a  comfortably  re- 
laxed passenger  for  Dreamland,  back  just  far  enough 
to  cause  his  eyes  a  slight  strain  in  the  attempt  to 
focus  them  upon  yours.  Hold  them  thus  steadily,  and. 
repeat  in  a  drowsy,  monotonous  tone,  "You  are  going 
to  sleep — sound  asleep!  Your  eyelids  are  getting 
heavy!  You  are  going  to  let  them  close  down,  and 
go  sound  to  sleep — sleep — sleep — sound  asleep!"  Vary 
this  formula  from  time  to  time  to  concentrate  atten- 
tion fully  upon  the  matter  in  hand. 

In  the  course  of  five  or  ten  minutes  the  subject's 
eyelids  will  get  heavy,  and  gradually  flutter  down.  He 
will  soon  be  sound  asleep. 

Patience  and  absolute  seriousness  of  purpose  are 
necessary  for  the  success  of  this  experiment.  When 
sleep  has  been  induced  it  is  well  to  suggest,  as  though 
there  could  be  no  particle  of  doubt  that  the  instruc- 
tions will  be  literally  carried  out,  "You  will  sleep 
soundly  all  through  the  night !    You  will  awake  rested 


102  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

and  refreshed  in  the  morning!  And  you  will  be  able 
to  go  sound  asleep  to-morrow  night,  and  the  next 
night,  and  every  night  hereafter  without  the  slightest 
conscious  effort !" 

There  need  be  no  fear  that  the  sleeper  will  not 
awaken  at  the  proper  time;  for  this  induced  sleep 
passes  imperceptibly  into  natural  sleep  in  a  very  few 
minutes.  From  the  induced  sleep  all  that  is  necessary, 
in  order  to  awaken,  is  to  say  in  a  little  firmer  and 
louder  tone  of  voice,  "When  I  count  five  you  will 
awake,  rested  and  refreshed."  Then  begin  counting, 
"One — two — three — four — "  pause  a  moment,  to  give 
the  subject  a  better  opportunity  to  focus  upon  the 
signal — then  sharply,  "five.     Wake  up!" 

This  method  is  particularly  effective  with  restless 
children. 

Those  of  us  who  have  counted  innumerable  sheep, 
jumping  one  by  one  over  the  fence  of  our  imagination, 
will  appreciate  that  the  point  to  be  striven  for  in  thus 
securing  sleep  is  monotony  and  repetition.  And  how- 
ever funny  it  may  seem  to  those  red-blooded  brigands 
who  can  woo  great  Nature's  second  course  and  chief 
nourisher  in  Life's  Feast  at  will,  it  is  no  joke  to  the 
wideawake  mathematician,  counting  faithfully,  and 
heartily,  those  ghostly  sheep  that  skip  so  blithely  over 
the  stile. 

Now  here  is  a  method  that  doesn't  permit  so  much 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 103 

latitude  for  galloping  thoughts:  it  is  a  form  of  sug- 
gestion that  aduUs  can  practice  upon  themselves:  The 
idea  is  to  establish  monotony  by  repeating  a  progres- 
sion of  numbers,  aiding  mental  concentration  by  open- 
ing and  shutting  the  eyelids  at  each  count.  The  phys- 
ical act  of  opening  and  closing  the  lids  requires  just 
sufficient  effort  to  keep  out  extraneous  ideas,  which 
mere  counting  would  not  accomplish. 

Thus,  lying  quietly  relaxed,  count  "One,"  at  the 
same  time  opening  and  closing  the  eyelids.  Wait  a 
few  moments,  then  count  "Two,"  repeating  as  before. 
Presently  the  lids  will  become  heavier,  and  refuse  to 
open  at  the  count.  The  mind,  having  been  thoroughly 
occupied  in  counting  and  "willing"  impulses,  hasn't 
harbored  a  pack  of  racing  thoughts.  So  before  very 
long  Sleep  cuddles  into  its  rightful  place.  This  method 
will  well  repay  the  effort. 

Another  method  which  I  have  seen  work  well  is 
to  turn  on  the  right  side,  nestle  the  head  comfortably 
into  the  pillow,  and  take  a  full  inspiration  through 
the  nostrils,  drawing  as  much  air  in  as  possible. 

Then  leave  the  lungs  to  their  own  action,  neither 
forcing  nor  checking  exhalation. 

Try  to  think  of  the  breath — and  keep  the  mind 
fastened  on  this  thought — as  coming  through  the 
nostrils  in  one  continuous  stream.  After  a  few  mi- 
nutes of  this  concentration  you  will  no  longer  be  able 


104 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

to  focus  the  attention  on  this  "streaming  breath" — for 
you'll  be  sound  asleep. 

No  one  can  sleep  as  well  with  the  bright  sunlight 
shining  on  their  face  as  they  can  in  the  dark.  If  they 
do  sleep  as  well,  it  is  because  of  extreme  fatigue,  and 
the  rest  is  not  as  complete  as  sleeping  in  the  dark. 

The  same  is  true  of  irritation  upon  the  auditory 
nerve  as  upon  the  optic  nerve. 

Dr.  George  Starr  White,  in  the  seventh  edition  of 
his  "Lecture  Course  to  Physicians"  says : 

"Another  condition  that  influences  sleep  is  the 
magnetic  forces  of  the  earth.  Judging  from  all  other 
energies  they  must  afifect  sleep.  That  is  why  some 
individuals  can  sleep  well  if  they  are  grounded  to 
metal,  that  is,  by  having  a  metal  wire  run  crosswise 
of  the  bed  under  the  lower  sheet,  this  wire  being  at- 
tached to  some  grounded  metal,  such  as  a  gas  pipe, 
water  pipe  or  steam  pipe.  Some  hyper-sensitive  in- 
dividuals can  be  cured  of  sleeplessness  by  this  simple 
procedure. 

"This  is  not  imagination,  it  is  not  suggestion,  because 
it  has  often  been  tried  out  when  the  individual  did  not 
know  that  the  ground  wire  had  been  placed  under  the 
lower  sheet.  The  metal  may  come  in  contact  with  the 
skin,  but  as  a  rule  it  should  be  put  under  the  sheet 
and  the  moisture  from  the  body  will  make  a  'ground' 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 105 

sufficiently   good   to   keep  the  individual   in  a  static 
equilibrium. 

"The  magnetic  energies  of  the  earth  have  an  in- 
fluence upon  sleep  in  other  ways  in  the  direction  in 
which  the  person  sleeps.  Some  persons  will  sleep 
well  with  the  top  of  the  head  toward  the  north  or 
south,  while  others  will  sleep  better  with  the  head  to- 
ward the  east  or  west. 

"This  is  not  suggestion  or  imagination.  I  have  seen 
this  work  out  very  often  without  the  persons  knowing 
anything  about  the  points  of  the  compass  of  the  room 
in  which  they  were  sleeping.  To  further  prove  that 
this  peculiar  phenomenon  is  not  influenced  by  imagina- 
tion or  suggestion,  I  have  often  changed  the  direction 
in  which  infants  slept  and  have  cured  them  of  mal- 
nutrition without  any  other  change  being  made  in 
their  habits." 

Bear  in  mind  also  that  you  can't  relax  with  your 
knees  drawn  up.  And  crossing  the  legs  cramps  the 
muscles  and  checks  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
through  the  lower  limbs.  This  is  also  true  of  clasp- 
ing the  fingers  or  lying  upon  the  hands. 

If  one  sits  beside  an  insomniac  and  gently  strokes 
or  scratches  the  backs  of  his  hands  and  up  the  fore- 
arm in  slow  monotonous  rhythm,  it  will  frequently 
produce  sleep.     This  is  an  instance  of  the  soothing 


106  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

action  of  zone  therapy  upon  the  nerve  centres  con- 
nected with  the  extremities. 

Occasionally  it  is  found  that  certain  physical  ex- 
ercises, calculated  to  induce  fatigue  and  a  normal  re- 
laxation of  the  muscles,  are  very  effective. 

Here  is  one  that  gives  excellent  results : 

Lie  prone  in  bed,  and  stretch  the  body  to  its  utmost 
by  attempting  to  reach  the  head  and  foot  boards  at 
the  same  time.  Then  raise  your  head  a  few  inches, 
and  hold  it  in  this  position  while  breathing  slowly 
and  deeply.  You  will  soon  be  very  glad  to  drop  it 
back  upon  the  pillow.  Now  repeat  this  exercise  with 
the  right  foot.  When  that  droops  and  languishes 
from  fatigue,  do  the  same  with  the  left.  Then  begin 
with  the  head,  and  do  it  all  over  again. 

In  a  few  minutes  you  will  have  tired  and  relaxed 
most  of  the  muscles  of  the  body,  and  in  a  surprising 
number  of  instances,  if  the  procedure  be  faithfully 
followed  out,  a  healthy,  natural  sleep  will  follow. 

Reading  oneself  to  sleep  is  a  form  of  autohypnosis 
that  is  common  and  commendable.  The  book  or  mag- 
azine should  be  just  sufficiently  interesting  to  divert 
the  mind,  without  arousing  a  train  of  thought  intense 
enough  to  be  in  itself  a  cause  of  wakefulness. 

Osteopathy,  massage,  or  even  simple  rubbing  along 
the  spine,  friction  being  applied  with  the  bare  hand, 
have  given  good   results   in   sleeplessness.      In   using 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 107 

friction  there  should  be  only  moderate  pressure  at 
first,  becoming  still  lighter,  as  nervousness  and  ex- 
citation are  relieved,  and  the  patient's  slower  and 
more  even  breathing  indicates  the  relaxation  of  ap- 
proaching sleep. 

The  water  cure  (hydrotherapy)  has  many  enthu- 
siastic exponents.  It  is  rational,  harmless,  and  de- 
finitely helpful  in  a  large  percentage  of  cases.  The 
warm  bath,  the  hot  or  cold  footbath,  the  wearing  of 
the  moist  abdominal  bandage  (the  Neptune  girdle), 
and  the  wet  sheet  are  all  excellent. 

In  most  cases  of  insomnia,  unless  due  to  anemia, 
the  proteids  should  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  Meat 
proteids  especially  are  too  stimulating.  The  diet 
should  be  light  and  easily  digested.  The  principal 
meal  should  be  eaten  at  noon;  although  one  should 
never  retire  feeling  hungry.  In  fact,  a  glass  of  hot 
milk  or  a  very  light  lunch  just  before  going  to  bed 
is  often  a  good  soporific,  causing  a  flow  of  blood  from 
the  brain  to  the  great  abdominal  blood  vessels. 

One  frequent  cause  of  insomnia,  which  has  been  re- 
ferred to  before,  but  which  I  cannot  too  strongly 
emphasize,  is  a  bed  which  does  not  invite  perfect  re- 
laxation. 

If  there  is  any  squeak  or  rattle  in  a  bed — as  there 
is  with  most  wooden  beds  and  with  many  loosely-con- 


108  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

structed  metal  beds — the  nerves  are  startled  to  semi- 
activity. 

Even  with  those  who  are  ordinarily  sound  sleepers 
there  is  a  muscular  start — a  "jump" — when  the  bed 
creaks,  shakes  or  rattles.  It  is  the  old  inherited  in- 
stinct flashing  to  the  brain  the  message  that  we  are 
threatened  by  danger  from  some  source. 

If  we  are  "light  sleepers"  this  stimulus,  aroused 
by  the  shaking  of  the  bed  as  we  turn  in  our  sleep,  or 
by  the  slip  of  a  spring,  shocks  the  nerves  into  tem- 
porary wakefulness.  We  may  not  wake  up — but  the 
nerves  do.  And  this  is  enough  to  lighten  and  disturb 
the  sleep  and  invite  distressing  or  unquieting  dreams. 
Or  the  nerve  irritation  may  even  be  sufficiently  pro- 
nounced to  produce  wakefulness.  And  the  habit  of 
wakefulness,  once  established,  produces  results  that 
are  very  difficult  to  overcome. 

An  uncomfortable  bed  will  have  the  same  effect  as 
a  squeaky,  noisy  bed.  If  the  springs  are  a  series  of 
hummocks  and  valleys  that  don't  fit  any  part  of  one's 
anatomy  comfortably,  if  the  mattress  is  "lumpy"  and 
uneven,  sleep  is  quite  likely  to  be  coy,  fickle,  and  hard 
to  win. 

These  are  such  obvious  things  that  few  people  ever 
think  of  them.  But  some  of  the  most  successful  nerve 
specialists  are  now  looking  into  the  bed  itself  for  the 
original,  Simon-pure  cause  of  insomnia.    And  they  are 


CURING  THE  INSOMNIAC 109 

finding  it — right  there — in  a  surprising  number  of 
instances. 

And  this  sensible  procedure  is  in  Hne  with  the  mod- 
ern theories  of  treating  causes — not  effects — of  curing 
a  thing  by  means  of  sensible  advice, — even  though  the 
total  consumption  of  pills  and  powders  suffers  terribly 
thereby. 

And,  be  it  again  emphasized  that  anything,  except 
drugs,  that  will  produce  sleep  is  useful  and  admirable. 
The  salutary  effects  of  a  drugless  sleep  are  felt  all  the 
next  day.  The  usual  "doped"  sensation  which  follows 
the  use  of  hypnotics — even  the  most  harmless,  as 
bromides  and  veronal — is  entirely  lacking.  If  a  com- 
prehensive inspection  of  your  habits,  with  the  correc- 
tion of  the  bad  ones,  doesn't  cure  your  insomnia,  you 
had  better  lose  no  time  in  calling  in  some  one  qualified 
to  discover  your  physical  imperfections,  and  apply  the 
proper  cure  directly  to  them.  It  will  be  a  thousand 
times  better  than  trying  to  club  your  insomnia  into 
insensibility  with  drugs.  "Sleep  at  any  price"  is  en- 
tirely too  expensive. 


Anglo-Saxon  Bed 
on  PV  heels — from 
illumination  in  an 
ancient  manuscript 


Chapter  XII 


SLEEPING  OUT" 


[LEEPING  out  is  a  fine,  healthy  occupa- 
tion, provided  one  is  strong  enough  to 
stand  it.  But  unfortunately,  instead  of 
being  confined  to  the  vigorous  and  athletic 
— with  sound  hearts,  rugged  circulations,  and  good, 
rich  blood — the  fad  is  usually  practiced  by  the  weak 
and  debilitated,  by  the  tubercular,  and  by  those  who 
lack  power  of  resistance. 

Understand,  this  does  not  imply  that  fresh  air  is 
not  a  desirable  and  indispensable  thing,  or  that  the 
bug-killing  and  appetite-stimulating  effects  of  oxygen 
are  lightly  to  be  regarded  or  in  the  slightest  degree 
disprized. 

It  simply  means  that  the  oxygen  one  gets  out  on 
the  front  porch  or  under  the  bare  boughs  of  the  old 

110 


'SLEEPING  OUT"  111 


elm  is  not  one  whit  better  in  quality  nor  quantity  than 
the  oxygen  one  gets  while  sleeping  in  a  thoroughly 
ventilated  bed  chamber,  in  a  comfortable  bed — prefer- 
ably one  he  doesn't  have  to  share  with  some  one  else. 

The  abuse  of  atmosphere  is  gradually  being  re- 
cognized by  the  best  authorities  as  one  of  the  most 
prevalent  and  pernicious  vices  of  modern  medical 
practice.  And  while  the  open-air  treatment  of  the 
sick — especially  of  those  sick  with  tuberculosis — has 
shown  splendid  and  encouraging  results,  these  author- 
ities hold  that  had  the  radicalism  of  ultra  enthusiasts 
only  been  tempered  with  a  little  warm  air  these  results 
would  have  been  even  more  encouraging. 

All  there  is  of  "open  air,"  "rest  cure,"  "forced  feed- 
ing," "climate  chasing"  and  other  hygienic  measures 
for  promoting  health  resolve  themselves  finally  into 
this:  To  build  more  blood  corpuscles,  that  increased 
amounts  of  the  bacteria-destroying  oxygen  may  be 
carried  to  diseased  tissues,  and  to  keep  the  victim  in 
a  climate  or  a  condition  of  living  in  which  he  can 
secure  the  maximum  amount  of  oxygen. 

It  is  true  that  educating  a  race  of  air-haters  as  to 
the  life-giving  properties  of  fresh  air  is  possibly  the 
greatest  single  factor  in  reducing  the  mortality  from 
the  pallid  scourge.  It  is  also  true  that  the  500  open 
air  schools  scattered  over  this  country,  the  575  sani- 
tariums modeled  after  the  Saranac  plan,  the  450  dis- 


112 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

pensaries,  with  their  thousand  physicians  and  4,000 
nurses  devoted  to  the  open  air  treatment  of  disease, 
are  doing  a  praiseworthy  and  useful  work. 

Sending  patients  to  a  climate  that  permits  them  to 
spend  a  maximum  amount  of  time  in  the  open  air  is 
also  hopeful. 

But  these  things,  splendid  in  themselves,  have  con- 
fused the  real  issue.  They  have  been  made  the  "whole 
thing,"  whereas  they  are  only  a  part  of  the  great 
strategic  scheme  for  overcoming  tuberculosis. 

The  fallacy  of  a  special  fresh  air  climate  for  tuber- 
culosis is  pointed  out  by  state  medical  associations. 
Cities  and  whole  districts  are  passing  resolutions  try- 
ing to  control  the  influx  of  patients  who  look  to  these 
districts  as  Meccas  of  cure.  It  is  a  matter  of  statistics 
that  fully  85  per  cent  of  cases  seeking  relief  west  of 
the  Mississippi  are  fatal. 

Brown  says :  "The  practice  of  sending  patients  to 
health  resorts,  with  the  advice  to  live  outdoors,  to 
exercise  freely,  and  to  consult  no  physicians,  is  crim- 
inal. The  best  climate  for  any  patient  is  one  where 
the  demand  for  tissue  change  best  coincides  with  the 
patient's  powers  for  response." 

The  difference  of  not  more  that  10  degrees  in  tem- 
perature will  frequently  work  the  change  between 
stimulation  and  exhaustion. 

And  notwithstanding  that  great  stress  is  laid  upon 


"SLEEPING  OUT"  \n 

the  beneficial  effects  of  the  dry  air  of  mountainous 
regions,  the  truth  is  that  there  is  less  oxygen  to  a 
cubic  foot  of  this  air  than  there  is  at  lower  levels,  and, 
anyhow,  of  what  use  is  an  "excess  of  fresh  air"  any- 
where between  sea  level  and  mountain  top  to  those 
whose  red  corpuscles  do  not  absorb  and  carry  the 
oxygen  ? 

Every  one  should  have  absolutely  pure  air — all  of 
it  he  can  possibly  use  during  twenty-four  hours  of 
every  day.  But  it  should  be  warmed  to  a  temperature 
bearable  by  human  beings. 


Chinese 

Head   Rest 
of  Porcelain. 


Chapter  XIII 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BED 

HE  first  bed  was  a  pile  of  leaves  gathered 
under  the  protecting  shelter  of  a  ledge,  or 
scooped  into  a  corner  of  a  cave.  The  in- 
tent was  the  same  as  applies  to  the  most 
elaborate  and  perfect  resting  place — favoring  relaxa- 
tion while  leaving  the  circulation  of  the  body  un- 
impeded. 

It  is  obvious  that  when  the  weight  of  the  body 
presses  upon  an  unyielding  surface  the  circulation  of 
blood  through  the  parts  squeezed  against  the  hard  sur- 
face is  checked.  Nutrition  is  interfered  with.  Re- 
cuperation from  fatigue  is  not  so  perfect. 

As  foreheads  became  less  and  less  oblique  man  be- 
came more  and  more  adept  to  providing  for  growing 
wants.  As  life  and  activities  evoluted  from  simple 
to  complex  so  skill  in  providing  for  these  grew. 

114 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BED 115 

So  next  we  see  man  using  the  skins  of  beasts  he 
had  killed  to  bed  down  upon.  From  this  he  gradually 
evolved  a  frame  work  interlaced  with  thongs,  upon 
which  the  skins  were  spread.  Then  by  degrees  the 
evolution  progressed  up  to  the  development  of  those 
ornate  and  extravagant  sleeping-places  of  the  emperors 
who  infested  Rome  shortly  before  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  framework  of  some  of  these 
beds  or  couches  was  of  solid  silver,  or  even  of  gold, 
wonderfully  carved,  and  richly  ornamented  with  jewels 
and  semi-precious  stones. 

The  luxury  and  magnificence  of  sleeping  appoint- 
ments, however,  culminated  among  the  Egyptians. 
Cleopatra  struck  13  in  this  effort,  with  her  marvel- 
ously  beautiful  silver  and  ivory  couch.  On  the  foot- 
posts  of  this  luxurious  bed  were  two  beautiful  cupids, 
three  feet  in  height,  aiming  their  golden  arrows  at  the 
sleeper.  The  richness  of  the  silken  draperies  and  pil- 
lows upholstering  and  decorating  the  couch  furnished 
the  theme  for  more  than  a  few  poetical  effusions. 

Homer  was  the  first  to  describe  a  bed  as  a  piece  of 
furniture  to  sleep  on.  He  tells  about  the  bed  Ulysses 
made  in  his  own  house.  There  is  also  another  ancient 
reference  to  beds  in  the  Book  of  Esther. 

The  Biblical  reference,  however,  is  probably  only 
to  the  coarse,  stuffed  pillows  or  cushions,  thrown  or 
piled  in  out-of-the-way  corners  of  the  room— used  for 


116  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

seats  by  day  and  for  beds  by  night,  in  true  Oriental 
fashion. 

In  the  fullness  of  time  movable  beds  made  of  wood, 
copper  and  the  more  precious  metals  were  invented  to 
meet  man's  expanding  wants. 

Then  came  the  couch  chest — a  shallow  chest  filled 
with  dry  moss,  reeds,  feathers,  wool  or  hair,  and 
covered  with  skins — a  crude  bedding  arrangement 
which  subsequently  developed  into  the  mattress.    . 

The  couch  chest  eventually  grew  into  the  bedstead 
— ^built  into  the  room  like  a  steamship  berth — only 
wider  and  more  comfortable. 

Early  in  the  twelfth  century  high-post,  canopy-top 
bedsteads  came  into  fashion.  These  were  usually 
movable  and  hung  with  embroidered  curtains,  so  ar- 
ranged, that  if,  by  chance,  any  fresh  air  ever  got 
into  these  fetid  sleeping  chambers,  the  curtains  would 
automatically  intercept  it  before  it  got  near  the  sleeper. 

No  wonder  our  ancestors  in  the  good  old  times, 
got  full  of  grace  and  died  young.  If  they  hadn't  been 
very  tough  and  resistent  they  would  have  died  even 
younger. 

The  wealthy  nobles  of  these  unhappy  times  had  a 
very  high  appreciation  of  the  artistic.  But  they  didn't 
know  much  about  the  hygienic  value  of  a  bath.  Nor 
did  they  know  anything  about  the  disease-carrying 
power  of  bed-bugs,  lice,  fleas  or  ticks. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BED  117 

They  knew  that  these  were  most  uncomfortable 
sharers  of  a  bed.  But  they  hadn't  sense  enough  to 
kill  them  off.  For  when  the  attention  of  their  insect 
boarders  became  unendurable  the  nobles  and  those 
who  had  other  houses  to  move  into,  packed  up  their 
toothbrush  and  extra  suit  of  armor  and  went  to  an- 
other of  their  estates  to  live.  They  left  the  old  house 
to  "sweeten" — as  they  called  the  process  of  starving 
out  the  insect  invaders.  The  poor  grinned  and  bore 
it  as  best  they  might — the  whiles  they  prayed  for 
Winter. 

Certain  peoples  have  believed — perhaps  for  the  same 
reason  that  some  travellers  always  prefer  to  sleep  in 
an  upper  berth — that  if  one  has  to  climb  into  bed  by 
the  aid  of  a  ladder  they  get  better  air. 

The  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and  many  other  ancient 
races  had  high  bed-steads,  into  which  they  climbed  to 
roost  by  the  aid  of  steps  or  a  young  ladder.  They 
had  bolsters  or  pillows,  designed  to  prevent  them  from 
falling  out  and  mussing  themselves  up  generally. 

Their  head-rests  were  semi-cylindrical,  and  were 
often  made  of  stone,  wood  or  metal.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  they  should  choose  these  uncomfort- 
able substances  as  pillows.  They  had  no  need — as  had 
the  Japanese,  who  used  a  wooden  block  under  their 
neck  to  preserve  their  elaborate  coiffure — for  these 
foolish  head-rests. 


118  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

Iron  beds  first  appeared  in  the  eighteenth  century  in 
response  to  a  Hmited  demand  for  a  piece  of  sleeping- 
equipment  less  favorable  for  the  harboring  of  noxious 
insects.  It  was  one  of  the  truly  great  and  helpful 
innovations  that  human  beings  evolve  ever  so  often. 

But,  until  sanitation  became  a  science,  and  hygiene 
a  household  word,  the  adoption  of  the  metal  bed  didn't 
proceed  very  fast.  In  fact,  most  of  us,  not  much  worse 
than  middle  age,  remember  when  there  was  nothing 
but  wooden  beds  to  be  had.  They  fitted  together  with 
ramshackle  sockets,  and  were  as  full  of  cracks  as  an 
egg  is  of  meat. 

These  rapidly  got  no  better  until  the  rash  finally 
broke  out  in  the  folding  bed.  That  spelled  their  death- 
knell  in  most  refined  homes.  Never  since  that  distant 
(lay  has  any  bed  made  of  wood  and  slats,  and  myriads 
of  cracks  and  crannies  ever  darkened  the  doors  of  these 
homes.     Nor  it  never  will. 

Among  a  few  families  the  bogy  feather-bed — 
collector  of  generations  of  germs,  saturator  of  the 
emissions  of  decades  of  dead  and  gone  ancestors — still 
holds  a  place.  But  this  hold  is  rapidly  being  pried 
loose.  And  soon  the  old  feather-bed  of  song  and  story 
will  be  as  extinct  as  the  dodo. 

In  most  nice,  modern  homes  the  things  that  belong 
with  the  featherbed  are  also  being  banished  from 
the  bed-rooii*. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BED  119 

Sensible  people  everywhere  have  given  up  the  fool- 
ish practice  of  trying  to  sleep  in  a  museum  packed  full 
of  gimcracks,  and  loaded  to  the  guards  with  all  forms 
of  dust-gathering,  germ-harboring  devices. 

Heavy  curtains  and  thick  carpets,  lambrequins,  pil- 
low shams  and  fancy  bed  spreads,  doilies,  crayon  por- 
traits of  grandfather  and  grandmother  Standish  and 
Aunt  Libby  in  her  wedding-brocade,  the  spy-glass  and 
sea-urchins  that  Uncle  Tom  brought  back  from  the 
East  Indies,  what-not  stands,  and  the  Lord  only  knows 
what  other  useless,  cluttering  things,  have  all  been 
sent  to  the  attic  or  the  junk-heap  years  ago. 

Refined  people  are  coming  more  and  more  to  de- 
mand simplicity  and  sweet  wholesomeness  in  the  bed- 
room decoration. 

They  realize  that  there's  nothing  quite  so  clean  and 
fresh  and  thoroughly  healthful  as  a  bed  that  can  be 
made  without  inducing  an  attack  of  nervous  prostra- 
tion, four  walls  that  can  be  wiped  down,  and  a  floor 
that  can  be  mopped  up  without  wrecking  the  place  or 
making  it  look  like  one  of  those  May  mornings  when 
we  were  moving  in  just  as  the  other  family  was  mov- 
ing out. 

And  in  this  same  direction  of  mental  progress  there 
is  an  ever-increasing  disposition  in  the  choice  of  bed- 
room furniture. 

Most  people  no  longer  select  beds,  for  instance,  be- 


2Iodern  All-Metal  Twin  Beds — reproduced  by  permission  of  the  makers, 
Simmon's  Company  of  Kenosha,  Wisconsin. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BED 121 

cause  they  are  part  of  a  "set"  of  bed-room  furniture, 
or  because  they  happen  to  "match." 

They  are  buying  artistic  beds  that  harmonize  with 
the  decorative  scheme.  But  they  also  have  in  mind 
the  utiHtarian  uses  of  their  sleeping-equipment. 

There  is  only  one  bed  that  is  absolutely  sanitary,  safe 
and  sane.  This  is  a  well-constructed  bed  of  metal, 
tight  and  rigid  in  the  joints,  with  a  spring  that  retains 
its  plane  surface,  and  a  firm  yet  flexible  mattress, 
devoid  of  humps,  hollows  and  uneven  surfaces. 

This  is  the  ideal  bed — a  bed  more  sleep-engendering 
and  rest-bringing  than  any  emperor  of  antiquity  ever 
slept  in. 

If  everybody  in  the  world  had  such  a  bed  all  to  him- 
self, and  a  clear  conscience,  the  sum  total  of  happiness 
and  health  among  humans  would  be  marvelously  in- 
creased. 


Fork  and 
Pole  Couch 
of  the 
Chippewa 
Indians, 


Chapter  XIV 


SEPARATE    BEDS  AS  HEALTH 
CONSERVATORS 

rN  the  last  decade  of  the  19th  Century, 
Angelo  Mosso,  Professor  of  Physiology  in 
the  University  of  Turin,  made  a  series  of 
observations  and  experiments. 
These  experiments  dealt  with  a  graphic  method  of 
registering  the  movements  of  the  brain  and  circulation 
during  sleep.  They  were  made  upon  a  man  of  37 
years  of  age,  a  woman  of  about  the  same  age,  and  a 
child  of  12,  who  had  lost  a  portion  of  the  top  of  their 
skulls  through  various  accidents,  the  seat  of  the  wounds 
being  covered  with  a  soft,  pulsating  scar. 

By  a  special  arrangement  Mosso  took  simultaneous 
tracings  of  the  pulse  at  the  wrist,  the  heart  beat,  the 
movements  of  the  wall  of  the  chest  made  by  breathing, 
and  the  movements  and  pulsation  of  the  denuded 
surface  of  the  brain. 

By  means  of  the  plethysmograph — an  instrument  of 

122 


SEPARATE  BEDS  FOR  HEALTH  123 

his  own  invention,  but  now  in  general  use  by  physiol- 
ogists— Mosso  obtained  tracings  upon  carbon  paper 
showing  changes  in  the  vohime  of  blood  in  the  hand 
and  forearm.  He  showed  that  during  sleep  there  is 
a  diminished  amount  of  blood  in  the  brain,  at  the 
same  time  that  the  amount  of  blood  in  the  extremities 
is  increased. 

But  the  most  significant  feature  of  Mosso's  work 
developed  from  the  fact  that  there  are  frequent  adjust- 
ments of  the  blood,  even  during  sleep,  resulting  from 
various  stimuli. 

Thus  a  strong  stimulus  to  the  skin  or  to  a  sense 
organ — but  not  strong  enough  to  awaken  the  sleeper — 
caused  a  contraction  of  the  blood  vessels  of  the  fore- 
arm, an  increase  in  the  blood  pressure,  and  an  increase 
in  the  amount  of  blood  in  the  brain. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  sleeper  was  suddenly 
awakened  there  was  a  contraction  of  the  blood  vessels 
in  the  brain  a  general  rise  in  pressure,  and  a  quickened 
flow  of  blood  through  the  brain. 

So  sensitive  is  the  system  to  these  influences,  even 
during  sleep,  that  a  loudly  spoken  word,  a  sound,  a 
touch,  the  action  of  light,  or  any  other  sense  impression 
changed  the  system  of  breathing,  caused  a  contraction 
of  the  blood  vessels  in  the  arm,  increased  the  general 
blood  pressure,  caused  an  increased  flow  of  blood  to 


124 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

the  brain,  and  quickened  the  frequency  of  the  heart 
beat. 

All  these  disturbances,  as  Professor  Mosso  points 
out,  "lighten"  the  sleep,  interfere  with  the  building  up 
of  tissue,  and  retard  oxidation  and  all  the  physiolog- 
ical functions  of  sleep. 

From  this  it  will  clearly  be  seen  that  the  practice  of 
sleeping  in  separate  beds,  adopted  in  most  modern 
households,  is  one  of  the  most  health-bringing  reforms 
humanity  has  ever  instituted  since  it  used  to  "bed 
down"  in  a  conglomerate  heap  on  a  pile  of  leaves  or 
skins. 

For  a  cough,  a  restless  move,  a  touch,  a  sigh,  a 
fanfare  of  snores  or  groans,  the  mutterings  of  a 
dreamer,  the  twistings  and  turnings  of  an  insomniac 
seeking  a  more  promising  sleeping  position — all  inter- 
rupt the  function  of  sleep.  Therefore  restlessness  of 
either  of  the  sleepers  is  communicated  to  the  other. 

It  is  disturbing  enough,  indeed,  for  two  persons  to 
sleep  even  in  the  same  room.  Every  step  or  squeak  or 
sound,  or  even  the  sensation  caused  by  the  presence 
of  another  person  close  by — a  sensation  usually  magni- 
fied by  the  subconscious  mind — tends  to  lighten  sleep. 
But  to  lie  within  touching  distance  is  infinitely  worse. 

And  everyone  knows  how  infections — such  as  colds, 
sore  throat,  coughs,  grippe — are  communicated  by 
sleeping  with  one  so  afflicted.    There  is  no  quicker  or 


SEPARATE  BEDS  FOR  HEALTH  125 

more  effective  way  to  contract  any  contagious  disease 
than  merely  to  sleep  with  one  who  has  it. 

Also,  while  it  may  not  actually  cause  disease,  it  cer- 
tainly is  most  unhygienic  and  unaesthetic  to  be  obliged 
to  breathe  the  offensive  breath  of  one  who  suffers  from 
catarrh,  decayed  teeth,  or  stomach  disorder. 

The  single  bed  also  permits  one  to  sleep  on  either 
side  at  will.  One  who  has  a  bed  to  himself  doesn't 
have  to  sleep  upon  his  left  side — an  uncomfortable 
position  for  many  fleshy  people,  and  for  those  with 
any  tendency  to  heart  trouble — in  order  to  avoid 
breathing  the  poisonous  exhalations  of  his  sleeping 
partner.  And  when  he  gets  tired  of  sleeping  on  one 
side  he  can  change  to  the  other  at  will. 

Separate  beds  also  make  it  possible  for  each  sleeper 
to  gauge  the  amount  of  covering  according  to  his  indi- 
vidual needs.  He  uses  only  what  he  wants — and  no 
more.  Or  else  all  he  wants — without  giving  his  partner 
an  unsolicited  Turkish  bath, — ^bedclothes  to  tuck  in 
about  one's  self  at  will,  or  to  be  cast  off  without  a 
thought  of  discomfort  to  a  companion. 

The  constant  exchange  of  magnetism  with  one  who 
shares  a  bed  tends  also  to  create  apathy  and  a  distaste 
for  contact — and  something  of  the  elusive  charm  and 
mystery  of  sex  aloofness  is  brutalized  or  lost  thereby. 

For  children  to  sleep  with  the  aged — to  whom  they 
constantly  lose  magnetism  and  vital  force —  is  a  crime 


126 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

against  the  child.  The  facts  of  such  loss  are  admitted 
by  every  competent  medical  man — the  principle  has 
been  recognized  from  time  immemorial.  The  Bible 
mentions  the  ancient  King  David,  to  whom  was  given 
a  youth,  to  supply  him  with  vitality. 

Only  thirty  years  ago  certain  institutions,  founded 
upon  those  same  principles,  existed  in  France.  Young 
girls  and  boys  were  supplied  to  old  women  and  old 
men  as  bed-fellows.  Almost  without  exception  these 
young  folks  lost  in  vitality — some  actually  sickening. 
The  evil  effects  of  this  strange  sale  of  life-force  were 
so  marked  that  the  institutions  were  finally  closed  by 
police  order. 

This  same  loss  in  vitality  is  responsible  for  much 
of  the  nervousness,  irritability  and  weakness  that 
effects  American  women — for  the  reasons  just  men- 
tioned. 

Dr.  George  Starr  White,  in  the  seventh  edition  of 
his  "Lecture  Course  For  Physicians"  brings  these  facts 
out  very  clearly. 

He  says  :  "During  sleep  the  psycho-magnetic  radia- 
tions from  the  body  are  greatly  reduced — proving 
again  that  the  psycho-magnetic  radiations  or  magnetic 
atmosphere  of  the  body  are  simply  a  manifestation  of 
energy,  voluntary  or  involuntary.  As  these  magnetic 
radiations  from  the  body  are  increased  by  mental 
effort,  so  are  they  decreased  by  sleep. 


■SEPARATE  BEDS  FOR  HEALTH  127 

"The  more  deeply  any  animal  is  sleeping,  the  less 
energy  can  be  observed  in  their  magnetic  atmosphere 
or  radiations. 

"Every  rate  and  mode  of  motion  within  the  body 
influences  a  rate  and  mode  of  motion  emanating  from 
the  surface  of  the  body,  these  emanations  being  known 
as  the  aura,  the  psycho-magnetic  atmosphere,  or  mag- 
netic radiations.  The  most  prominent  of  these  radia- 
tions I  have  termed  auric  rays,  as  they  are  distinct 
rays  in  the  auric  or  magnetic  atmosphere.  These  auric 
rays  can  be  projected.  One  individual  is  influenced 
by  another  individual  by  what  some  have  called  the 
sixth  sense,  but  which  in  reality  is  the  auric  rays — 
the  magnetic  atmosphere  projected. 

"Frequently  the  physician  hears  that  his  patient  does 
not  sleep  well,  that  something  seems  to  irritate  him. 
The  physician  asks  if  he  sleeps  with  anyone,  and  per- 
haps he  does.  If  the  physician  is  informed  regarding 
auric  phenomena,  he  will  at  once  advise  the  patient  to 
sleep  alone.  Sometimes  even  if  the  patient  sleeps  alone, 
but  in  the  same  room  with  someone,  he  may  have  to 
sleep  in  a  different  room. 

"Patients  sometimes  say  that  they  cannot  sleep  if 
a  certain  nurse  is  in  the  room,  but  if  another  nurse  is 
there  they  sleep  well.  This  is  not  due  to  imagination. 
For  in  many  cases  the  antagonistic  nurse  was  sent  into 
the  room  after  the  patient  was  asleep,  and  the  patient 


128  SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

would  unconsciously  begin  to  move  about  as  if  his 
subconscious  condition  was  irritated  by  the  very 
emanations  from  the  one  that  was  antagonistic  to 
him.  I  have  often  questioned  such  patients  to  see 
why  they  had  this  feeling,  and  almost  invariably  they 
say  they  do  not  know.  They  regretted  it — but  it  was  a 
fact,  nevertheless. 

"As  a  rule,  I  should  say  it  is  better  for  people  not 
to  sleep  together,  because  if  one  has  a  weakness  in  any 
part  of  the  body,  that  weakness  seeks  to  be  satisfied. 
If  the  sleeper's  companion  can  satisfy  that  weakness, 
it  is  going  to  be  taken,  because  the  law  of  nature  is 
toward  establishing  equilibrium.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  auric  emanations  from  one  person  affects  an- 
other during  sleep  as  well  as  during  waking  hours. 

"As  for  sisters  sleeping  together,  or  brothers  sleep- 
ing together,  I  believe  it  is  a  bad  plan,  as  one  is  liable 
to  draw  from  the  other — one  will  be  the  gainer  and 
the  other  will  be  the  loser. 

"How  much  of  this  is  due  to  loss  in  magnetism  and 
how  much  to  the  disturbance  caused  by  restlessness,  of 
course,  cannot  be  definitely  stated. 

"Another  condition  I  have  observed  in  studying  the 
traits  of  those  who  have  for  years  slept  together,  and 
that  is  that  one  of  the  individuals  completely  dominates 
the  other.  I  have  often  heard  it  said  of  such  individuals 


SEPARATE  BEDS  FOR  HEALTH  129 


that  the  temperament  of  the  one  seemed  to  have  fallen 
entirely  under  the  control  of  the  other. 

"If  two  individuals  are  of  a  similar  temperament 
and  both  of  the  same  activity,  sleeping  together  is  a 
great  detriment,  and  is  bound  to  make  one  or  the 
other  deteriorate  in  some  way.  This  is  a  natural  law 
— a  law  of  opposites  attracting  each  other  and  likes 
repelling. 

"Taking  all  things  into  consideration,  the  physician 
should  advise  his  patients  to  sleep  alone.  This  can 
be  done  by  having  separate  beds  in  the  same  room 
or  in  separate  rooms,  depending  upon  their  circum- 
stances." 

Dr.  George  Lenox  Curtis,  of  New  York,  finds  also 
that: 

"Stronger  or  older  persons  live  at  the  expense  of 
the  weaker  or  younger  with  whom  they  may  sleep. 

"One  delicate,  nervous  child  I  remember  had  been 
treated  by  a  number  of  physicians,  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
I  inquired  into  her  sleeping  habits ;  found  out  she  had 
slept  almost  from  birth  with  a  big  robust  mother. 

"I  ordered  the  child  a  room  and  a  bed  to  itself — 
no  other  treatment.  Her  improvement  began  from  the 
very  first  night.  The  child  thrived — grew  strong  and 
well — ^both  in  nerves  and  body. 

"And  this  is  only  one  of  a  dozen  cases  I  have  seen — 


130 SLEEPING  FOR  HEALTH 

where  vigorous,  healthy  men  have  sapped  the  vitaHty 
of  frail,  delicate  women,  or  where  older  people  have 
systematically  robbed  younger  sleeping-mates  of  health 
and  strength." 

And,  while  fortunately  such  accidents  are  not  fre- 
quent, hundreds  of  instances  are  known  in  which 
mothers,  during  sleep,  have  rolled  over  upon  their 
babe  or  young  child,  and  smothered  it.  Such  an  acci- 
dent is  liable  to  occur  at  any  time,  to  any  mother  who 
sleeps  in  the  same  bed  with  her  child. 

So  separate  beds  for  every  sleeper  are  as  necessary 
as  are  separate  dishes  for  every  eater.  They  promote 
comfort,  cleanliness,  and  the  natural  delicacy  that  ex- 
ists among  human  beings.  Sleep  becomes  more  relax- 
ing, and  therefore  more  reconstructive — next  to  con- 
sciousness itself,  the  most  wonderful  and  healthful 
thing  in  life. 

No  fervid  coloring  of  poetic  rhapsody  can  ever  paint 
the  virtues  of  sleep  in  over-brilliant  hues.  No  enco- 
miums of  shrewd-eyed  science  can  exaggerate  the 
soothing  touch  of  this  soft  nurse  of  Nature.  No  adept, 
delving  into  the  esoteric  mysteries  of  the  mind,  can 
plumb  the  profound  depths  of  this  most  familiar  and 
most  marvelous  of  mysteries. 

And  yet  nightly,  emperor  and  peasant,  scholar  and 
babe,  sinner  and  saint,  yield  themselves  to  the  soft 
embrace  of  this  universal  mother,  and  close  their  eyes 


SEPARATE  BEDS  FOR  HEALTH  131 

confidingly  under  the  gray  shelter  of  her  outspread 
wing. 

And  the  most  tender,  the  most  beautiful,  the  most 
trusting  thought  in  the  minds  of  all  the  children  of 
men  is  and  ever  shall  be  "He  giveth  His  beloved 
sleep." 


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